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James Beard–Nominated Chef, Chef-Owner, and culinary entrepreneur. Latin-focused, fire-driven cuisine rooted in tradition and executed at scale — from Mexico, Peru, and Argentina to the Latin Caribbean, Spain, and the American South.
You can now get my meals prepared fresh daily and delivered to your door the next day, in partnership with CookUnity. Every dish that reaches you started somewhere much smaller: my mother's stove, a market stall in Lima, a grill in Austin, Texas. I also send my recipes straight to your inbox through video walkthroughs on Substack — sign up here. I can reach you wherever you are, one meal at a time, in a way my restaurant never could.
Welcome to my table.
PERUVIAN • MEXICAN • ARGENTINE • LATIN CARIBBEAN • SPANISH • SOUTHER U.S. • AUSTIN, TX
Maribel Rivero is a third-generation food industry professional whose hunger for culinary creativity was fostered by her grandparents at a young age — and by the cazuela that never really left her mother's stove. She trained at the Culinary Institute of America in San Antonio, then set out to study Latin American cuisine firsthand across Peru, Bolivia, Ecuador, and Argentina. It was Lima that captured her fully: she spent two years immersed in the city's kitchens, working alongside acclaimed chefs like Pedro Miguel Schiaffino and Virgilio Martínez and absorbing a range of technique most chefs never get close to.
In 2017, she returned to the U.S. and opened Yuyo Peruano in East Austin with her brother, restaurateur Carlos Rivero — the city's first female chef run Peruvian restaurant in Austin, and a tribute to everything she'd learned on that journey. It quickly became a fixture of Austin's food scene, built one thoughtful, fire-charred plate at a time.
When the pandemic forced Yuyo to close in 2020, Maribel didn't step back from the kitchen — she moved it to her front lawn. She fired up the grill, started sharing recipes for free on Instagram, and turned that following into a personal-chef and cooking-class business built entirely from scratch. Her ceviche class went virtual too, paired with an ingredient-delivery kit — a CBS Local News feature caught her teaching a live cook-along, and once she realized she could teach people anywhere, she was running the class every week. "It's about the food, the love in cooking," she says. "I haven't lost that spark — I know this is my purpose."
That same fire is what she brings to CookUnity today. As a Partner Chef, Maribel is the #1 chef seller in Texas and a top seller in Florida, cooking dishes that move fluidly from Mexico to Peru to Argentina, the Latin Caribbean, Spain, and the American South — the same range she built one country at a time.
My name on the menu — Peruvian and Mexican comfort food built from family recipes, from mushroom enchiladas to pastel de choclo to grilled red snapper with chimichurri.
A fire-driven Latin grill concept — flame-seared meats, charred vegetables, and vibrant sauces inspired by my travels through Argentina, Peru, and Mexico.
Ready to taste it for yourself? Use my link for an exclusive offer on your first order.
Behind-the-scenes cooking, market runs, and the family recipes that don't make it onto the menu — I share it all @chefmaribelrivero.
