Meet the Talent

Chef Josiah Hernández the Executive Chef and owner of Chef's Garden, a fine dining sustainable and ecological restaurant that focuses on Caribbean ancestral ingredients that shaped the region for thousands of years. Josiah is also the co-founder of the non-profit, Siembra Vida, where vulnerable communities are lifted out of poverty through farm-to-table experiences in 3 Latin American countries. In 2024 Chef's Garden received the historic recognition as the first restaurant in Puerto Rico to receive the award for best sustainable restaurant in Latin America & Iberian Peninsula (Portugal & Spain) by the Academia Iberoamericana de Gastronomía. Chef's Garden received in 2023 the first sustainable restaurant certification in the Caribbean by a European organization. In 2024, we received the first Food Made Good certification in Puerto Rico from the internationally recognized, Sustainable Restaurant Association and received the highest recognition of 3 stars. As a Caribbean Puerto Rican chef, Josiah has dedicated his life to identifying, researching, growing, and foraging the unique ingredients that originated from the Caribbean region. He identifies farmers who grow these almost-lost ingredients and connects chefs to support these farmers. He explores all possibilities for each ingredient and creates plates that tell stories of culture, history, and hope. Chef Josiah works with professors to identify local edible seaweed varieties from our ocean ecosystem and use them sustainably in our menu educating customers. His 3 pillars are to exhibit Caribbean ingredients internationally, inspire local chefs to work with ancestral ingredients and solidify the culinary culture. The restaurant is 100% off-grid with solar energy. The restaurant has a rain catchment system that collects and filters 60,000 gallons of rainwater/year. There are organic gardens around the restaurant to grow ingredients for the kitchen. Kitchen scraps are composted for our plants.