Hermanas, Chef Silvino Sanchez’s first restaurant, is set to open on Sept. 2 at 1100 E. Sixth St.
Justin Huffman/Provided by Hermanas
The idea for Silvino Sanchez’s first restaurant started with a plate of food he made wrong.
Sanchez was working in Austin when chef Thai Changthong, one of his early mentors, looked at a dish Sanchez had prepared and asked him what he was doing. Was he cooking mole? This was Thai food, Changthong told him. Sanchez needed to learn how to cook Thai food.
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Sanchez was frustrated. But the criticism stuck.
“I’m gonna make a Thai mole and it’s gonna knock your socks off just to spite you,” he remembers thinking.
Years later, that idea has become one of the dishes at Hermanas, Sanchez’s new restaurant opening Sept. 2 at 1100 E. Sixth St. Reservations are available via OpenTable.
Chef Silvino Sanchez is bringing Mexican Southeast Asian fusion to his new restaurant, Hermanas, at 1100 E. Sixth St.
Justin Huffman/Provided by Hermanas
The Austin native, the son of two Mexican immigrants, spent the last six years in Denver, including time as sous chef at Denver’s BRUTØ. The restaurant earned a Michelin star and a Michelin Green Star during Sanchez’s tenure.
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Before Denver, though, Sanchez’s culinary education was shaped in Austin — by his family, his grandmother’s cooking in Mexico and the Thai and Lao community he grew up around in Del Valle.
Hermanas is where those influences meet.
“I think the food is a bridging of cultures,” Sanchez said.
Finding a way back to Mexican food
The Panang curry mole is one of the dishes on the menu at Hermanas.
Justin Huffman/Provided by Hermanas
Sanchez grew up visiting his grandmother in Guadalajara, where he learned about cooking by watching her work.
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She grew up on a ranch and milled corn, made tortillas from scratch and cooked with produce from her garden. Sanchez remembers spending summers with her, sitting on a balcony and removing corn kernels from the cob so they could be milled.
Sanchez saw how food was inseparable from the way she cared for people.
Sanchez was about 15 when she died, and the family stopped making regular trips to Mexico.
At the same time, Sanchez was navigating a question familiar to many children of immigrants: where exactly he fit. He felt caught between cultures — not Mexican enough, but not entirely American, either.
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In Del Valle, his Thai and Lao friends introduced him to another culture through food. Sanchez became interested in the flavors, techniques and traditions of their families and communities.
That experience ultimately pushed him back toward his own Mexican heritage.
“I saw my friends having such a strong connection to their culture and wanting to share it with me,” he said. “It made me want to reconnect with Mexico.”
That reconnection became part of his professional cooking.
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At BRUTØ in Denver, Sanchez traveled to Mexico City and Guadalajara and spent more time studying regional Mexican cooking. He also learned how to translate that knowledge into the language of fine dining.
One of the dishes he remembers most from BRUTØ was a smoked watermelon tostada. The dish reminded Sanchez of something his father had told him about his own childhood.
His grandfather had come from a wealthy family and cared about appearances. When Sanchez’s father ate fruit, he was told to leave some of the flesh behind rather than scrape the fruit down to the rind. Finishing everything, his grandfather believed, might make the family look poor.
Years later, Sanchez was serving watermelon rind in a Michelin-starred restaurant.
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From Thai Kun to Hermanas
This is the A La Cucaracha, which will be offered at Hermanas.
Justin Huffman/Provided by Hermanas
Sanchez credits Changthong with teaching him much of what he knows about Thai and Lao cooking. The relationship was not always easy.
As a young cook, Sanchez sometimes resisted Changthong’s criticism. But the experience gave him a foundation in Southeast Asian food that would eventually become central to his cooking.
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The more Sanchez learned, the more similarities he noticed between Mexican and Southeast Asian cuisines: chiles, acidity, fresh herbs, spice and sauces that can take hours of preparation. He began to see connections.
That thinking shows up throughout Hermanas’ opening menu.
A callo de hacha tostada will pair scallop with nam prik pla ra, a Thai fermented fish dipping sauce, on an heirloom corn tortilla. Another dish, laab carne apache, combines dried Mexican chiles with avocado mousse, cured egg yolk and Marcona almonds.
The Panang curry mole is perhaps the clearest example.
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Sanchez said the dish came from his memories of eating leftover Panang curry as a young line cook and his desire to see whether its flavors could work with mole poblano.
Rather than simply putting two cuisines on the same plate, he wanted the combination to feel natural.
“You look at it on a plate, and you see, ‘Oh, this is a Mexican dish,’” he said. “Then you bite into it, and you get all of those flavors of a Panang curry.”
Looking toward the Gulf
The menu at Hermanas will also offer an aguachile.
Justin Huffman/Provided by Hermanas
After working in landlocked Colorado, Sanchez is also looking forward to having access to Gulf seafood.
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Sustainability became a major part of his work at BRUTØ, which earned a Michelin Green Star in 2023. Sanchez learned about sourcing from farmers and producers and about the environmental systems behind the ingredients a restaurant uses.
At Hermanas, he wants to bring that thinking to the Gulf.
He is particularly interested in working with seafood producers focused on sustainability, including oyster growers working to improve Gulf ecosystems.
“I want to see what we can do for the South Coast,” Sanchez said.
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The restaurant will also work with local farms, although Sanchez expects those relationships to develop over time. The restaurant has come together quickly since his return to Austin, and he said the menu will evolve as he establishes more connections with local producers.
For now, the focus is on getting the doors open.
The space is receiving its final touches. Sanchez and his team are refining dishes and working through the familiar last-minute demands of opening a restaurant.
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He knows the work will not end Sept. 2. If anything, that is when the more complicated part begins. For more information about Hermanas, visit Instagram.com/hermanas.austin.
Dining and Cooking