Shmilly Revilla. Shimilton Bobby Brown. Milly. My right nalga. Milton Revilla. Orale Milton. Le Cooking Savant. Chef Daddy.
Yo! Thanks for coming through to my website. I’m hoping to do this more often as a way to express myself through writing as well as utilizing my site year around. I pay like 30 freaking bucks a months to only pop out and sell twice a year, crazy. ANywayZ, my wife is asleep so this will be crudely written and executed. I am not a good writer by any means. My mom use to force to me write her a page a day about anything I wanted. I hated it, it felt like torture. I am constantly spelling things wrong and making up words. I struggled in school with writing and wasn’t the best reader either. But here we are 20 years later taking a crack at it. A colleague of mine recently read my zine and told me she’d like to see more of that kind of work. Why not?
Back in October Milton mentioned to me he’d be popping up at Win Son, which is a Taiwanese Restaurant and Bakery in Brooklyn. I have not had to the chance visit but they have a great reputation. This is coming off the heels of my last commission by Milton to do his Chino Grande pop up flyer. Which I executed digitally and has a cool light hearted feel. Scrolling through Win Son instagram I quickly realized this needed a hand draw approach. I already had been experimenting with my pastels but have not done a full on flyer with them. I am not a classically trained artist at all, I don’t think my pastels are very good but I had a lil gut feeling I’d snap. Not gonna lie, I procrastinated for at least 1.5 months before sitting down and doing the work. What a lot of my clients don’t realize is my job is not only to draw, but to think.
BACKSTORY
Milton and I go way back to 2017/2018. We met at Cosme, he was a prep cook/line cook around my age. He had an infection energy in the kitchen, great style and understood Mexican Cuisine on a deep level. I wanted to be his friend but he didn’t give me the time of day. Admittedly, on one of my trails I made myself look like a doofus by wearing a chef coat in the Cosme kitchen. I don’t think it was well received and Milt probably registered that in the back of his mind. Fast forward to when I was hired on as a line cook, Milt was on sabbatical working at Le Cou Cou gettin his French game up. I heard rumors he was coming back and that excited me to have a chance to befriend him. I was also a little intimidated and scared I’d be stuck on garmo forever since another big dog was coming in. Yada yada yada, we became boys and I got myself a mentor. Station after station Milton trained me, was patient but firm. This guy is an absolute ball buster and bully. But he doesn’t it from a place of love. In hindsight, I learned more from him than I did at cooking school.
DRAMA
Enough glazing, let's get to the drama. To cut to the chase, Milton and I had a falling out due to turbulent changes happening in our lives. We had a business together that failed due to lack of communication and understanding. It is a problem I have were I don’t address a problems until I blow up and throw it all away. Then our friend Josh died and that wrecked me. I couldnt’ look at Milton without thinking about Josh. It was easier to turn my back on it all while my heart healed. Thank god for Milton’s stubbornness for never giving up on me. We reconciled and have been working on rebuilding our friendship for the passed few years. In turn he has integrated in my life beyond my expectations. He’s great friends with my brother in law, my wife, her whole immediate family, has collaborated professionally with my friend and mentor Jassimran so on and so forth. It brings me great joy to have him back in my life and I’m so proud to watch him grow a father, person, and chef.
THE PIECE
I sat down one night as my wife slept in the room in preparation for her 3 am in time at the bakery she works at. Milt and I recently got tickets for Kanye West in Mexico City and I was running through his catalog like crazy. I am a huge fan of George Condo and Pablo Picasso I draw inspiration from their abstract art. The first piece was the portrait of Shmilton with a red background like My Beautiful Dark Twisted fantasy. I knew it wasn’t enough so I drew his lower body. I thought the negative space of the apron would be a great place for the details of the event. Still wasn’t enough, so I drew the Chef of Win Son, Trigg Brown in the same style. STILL! NOT ENOUGH, I drew a cute little Taiwanese bear with a supreme hat that Win Son uses often in their branding.
When I was done with all four pieces I still didn’t know what I was going to do. I laid the pieces out on my dining table and BOOM! That was it. The pieces side by side came together beautifully. I quickly snapped a picture and went to bed. I didn’t show Milton or Trigg right away. I had doubt due to the pieces being a little crude and ugly. I instead shopped the image around and asked some close friends and associates. They loved it, that’s when I knew this was it. Once I showed him it was over. He loved it and was so excited to show the world. Win Son loved it and the it was a closed case.
I’m so honored to be considered for these opportunities. I’m not a real artist, I'm a washed up cook turned waiter who has a hobby. I’m bullshitting, that’s just my imposter syndrome speaking. Im a lucky guy, even though I chose a different route me and my boy still get to shine together. I appreciate him for sharing his success with me and for believing in my abilities. This is the end for now, I feel like I’ve said too much. But whatever it’s just the internet. If you have time, please pop out and support my king. I will be out of town but I will be there in spirit.