Diego Moya
Executive Chef, Racines NY | New York
December 2020
In his native Chile, Diego Moya would cook and preserve the fruit growing in his family’s backyard. At 6, they moved to Long Island, where his parents opened a pizzeria. He spent every day there, prepping ingredients and learning the ins and outs of the kitchen. Moya traveled to Peru to cook at Astrid y Gaston, then Paris at Le Comptoir and L’Arpège, where he met his mentor, Alain Passard. As he journeyed, Moya worked on farms and studied biodynamics and permaculture, developing an appreciation for fine produce.
After returning to New York, Moya spent time at Dovetail, Kin Shop and Casa Mono before founding a supper club, Cure, out of his Williamsburg apartment in 2012. The experiment, which focused on food and drink pairings, helped him prepare to open his Lower East Side veg-forward restaurant, Hemlock, in 2016. (Diners swooned over his sweet potato loaf with burned leaf butter.) With the shuttering of Hemlock came a new opportunity: the formidable Racines NY wine bar in Tribeca. As executive chef, Moya creates a host of brightly colored dishes featuring his signature affinity for vegetables, coupled with ethically sourced meat. When Racines temporarily closed due to the coronavirus, Moya volunteered at a community garden on Randall’s Island and started two of his own in Battery Park and Alphabet City.
