Inside Milpa, a restaurant in Osaka's trendy Kitahorie neighborhood, the air feels deliciously cool after the intensity of the city's early summer heat. At the pass in the open kitchen, chef Willy Monroy, 40, commands an international staff in Spanish, and the brigade responds in the same language. Monroy cuts a towering, tattooed figure, albeit with a dimpled, smiling visage that gives him the appearance of a giant teddy bear.
A flickering candle illuminates a painting of Saint Jude Thaddeus — patron saint of impossible causes — that faces the restaurant's four tables, lending the intimate space an atmosphere that recalls a chapel.
"My mother gave me that painting before I left Mexico for Japan — it’s my talisman,“ Monroy explains.
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