Chef Profile: Axee Nava

As someone who spent years working as a private chef for wealthy families in places like the Hamptons, I’ve always been interested in the difference between cooking professionally and simply knowing how to cook. The pressure, the adaptability, the choreography behind the scenes—especially inside private homes—is an entirely different world.

That’s part of what made speaking with Axee Nava so interesting. The locally-born chef has already built an unusually broad foundation—formal gastronomy training in Zihuatanejo, followed by years in restaurant kitchens, luxury-home cooking, sourdough production, pastries and desserts, and catering large-scale private events throughout our coast—a master class in kitchen work.

As we spoke, I recognized many of the realities he described—unfamiliar kitchens, impossible requests, equipment failures, constant improvisation, and the strange intimacy of cooking while guests watch every move you make. What follows is an edited conversation about food, pressure, bread, technique, and what it means to want your own name—not just your employer’s—attached to your work.

ON GROWING UP IN TRONCONES

“I was born here. My whole life has been here, working here,” Axee explains. “Ever since I was little, I’ve always been involved in this work.”

At 15, while many teenagers were still figuring out what interests them, Axee enrolled in a gastronomy school in Zihuatanejo. “I studied for three years,” he says. “I was studying gastronomy and high school at the same time, while also working in a lot of the local kitchens.”

That early commitment still shapes how he approaches cooking today.

ON CULINARY SCHOOL—AND WHY IT MATTERS

Axee is careful not to dismiss cooks who learn through family kitchens. In towns like Troncones, many talented people grow up cooking beside parents, grandparents, uncles, or family businesses. But for him, formal training opened another layer.

“In school, they teach you to do things in a more organized and professional way,” Axee explains. “Techniques, knife cuts, presentation, costing—those are things you really learn in culinary school.” His training shows up not just in technique, but in the discipline of mise en place—organization, preparation, and readiness before service even begins.

Axee sees a difference between learning recipes and learning systems. “What I wanted was more knowledge,” he says. “I didn’t want to only stay behind the scenes in a kitchen. I want people to know me by my own name.”

That distinction—between being a cook and being a chef—is important to him and it came up repeatedly in our conversation.

‍ON THE DIFFERENCE BETWEEN A COOK AND A PRIVATE CHEF

For Axee, private chef work is not simply about making food.

“In restaurants, you’re cooking under the vision of the owner. The focus is typically on executing, producing and making the business profitable,” Axee explains, adding, “Private homes are different. When you’re a private chef, you try to create something personalized. An experience.”

That experience also comes with pressure.

Unlike a restaurant kitchen hidden behind swinging doors, private homes place the chef directly in front of guests—often in unfamiliar kitchens with missing tools, faulty grills, limited equipment, or improvised cooking spaces.

“You have to adapt to whatever they have,” Axee muses. “You have to solve the problem in the moment.”

And unlike restaurants, there is nowhere to hide mistakes.

“Everyone is watching your work,” Axee says. “If something goes wrong, it falls directly on you. And it’s not only cooking and serving food. You’re also paying attention to the drinks, the pace of the conversation, the mood—everything.”

He usually works with two assistants, who handle cleaning, service and support, while he focuses on preparing the meal and on guest interaction.

ON SOURDOUGH BREAD AND OBSESSION

Though cooking came first, bread eventually became its own passion for Axee.

While working at Café Pacífico, he shifted from kitchen management into bakery production, experimenting with croissants, brioche, baguettes, desserts and, eventually, sourdough. “The doughs really caught my attention,” Axee explains.

Today, he produces sourdough loaves by hand—no mixers or commercial machinery—from a home kitchen shared with his wife and three children. At times, they produce close to 90 or 100 loaves per week.

But Axee’s approach to sourdough is also shaped by local taste. “For me, personally, traditional sourdough can be too acidic for the Mexican palate,” he explains. “So, I try to control fermentation to find a middle point—enough flavor, but not too sour.”

It’s a small detail, but revealing. Much of Axee’s work seems to live in that same space—balancing international techniques with local preferences and ingredients.

ON INGREDIENTS AND COOKING ALONG THE COAST

Like many chefs in the region, Axee cooks heavily with seafood, often sourcing ingredients from markets in Zihuatanejo or from small local vendors selling products gathered from our surrounding hills and countryside.

“The ingredients are very important,” he says. “Especially when you want to surprise people.”

Though guests often expect Mexican seafood dishes, Axee describes himself as versatile, regularly preparing pizzas, pastas, breads, desserts, and cuisines outside the region when requested.

“If there’s something I don’t know,” he says, “I study it and figure it out.”

ON WHAT COMES NEXT

Eventually, Axee hopes to open his own restaurant.

Not just another seafood spot, but something more personal—a wood-fire-driven “cocina de autor” centered around his own dishes, techniques, and style. “I want it to be my own cuisine,” Axee says. “A place with dishes that are mine.”

Wood, smoke, charcoal, seafood, dough, fermentation—these are the elements he returns to repeatedly. For now, though, he continues moving between private homes, bread deliveries, desserts, and seasonal clients up and down the coast.

Quietly building a name people are beginning to remember.

‍

LINKS

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/axee.nava.1/

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/axeenava/

‍