What Martha Stewart Taught Me About Success
Yara Herrera is an Los Angeles-born, first-generation Mexican American chef, and partner behind Hellbender, a critically acclaimed Mexican American restaurant in Queens, New York.
On Thursday, May 1, 2025, Herrera will collaborate with Martha Stewart on a four-course dinner at Hellbender as part of The Resy Dream Team Dinners series. Get tickets here (terms apply).
I must’ve been 10 years old when Martha Stewart first crept into my life. I remember going to the doctor’s office and her lifestyle magazines would always be on the coffee table in the waiting room, just ready to be flipped through. Or I’d be wandering the home décor aisles of the Macy’s in Sherman Oaks, Calif., with my mom, and I’d catch Martha’s name on everything from bed sheets to towels. But it wasn’t until I was a teen, watching “The Martha Stewart Cooking Show” on the Hallmark channel by myself, in our San Fernando Valley home, that I actually became aware of who she is.
I’m an L.A.-born child of Mexican immigrants who don’t speak English and I loved watching Martha make the perfect Thanksgiving spread. But she wouldn’t just stop at the giant turkey or all of these crazy pies — she’d also make these intricate tablescapes, these beautiful decorations and garnishes, all of these little details that just amped the dining experience further. Everything she touched, she did with so much thought and care. I definitely didn’t realize it then, but now that I’m at the helm of my very own restaurant, I look back and understand that the thing that truly imprinted on me was Martha’s all-encompassing sense of hospitality.
Not too long ago, with the help of my business partners from Rolo’s, I opened Hellbender, a Mexican American restaurant in Ridgewood, Queens. And in our 14 months of business, I’ve really come to understand that a restaurant’s success isn’t just about the food. It’s about the vibe, the service — everything that contributes to making people feel warm and welcome. It’s about bringing everyone together, if only for a night. And I think the only way you can achieve that is to be your most authentic self.
With Hellbender, I’m definitely trying to share a piece of myself, and everything that contributed to making me who I am today. It’s obviously reflected in the food but also in these little details, like the playlist — in between the mariachi and ranchera tunes my mom loved and that I grew up listening to, there’s West Coast hip hop, too. (Martha and I also share a love for Snoop.)
It took me a while to get there, though. Growing up, I desperately wanted to be American so badly, I really didn’t honor a lot of the things that were special to my Mexican heritage. This was only cemented further when I began my culinary career, especially in the more fine dining settings: everything revolved around French cooking. I never saw my culture as a culinary path to success. It took almost 10 years and the pandemic for me to even start to conceive that I could actually make it by doing something that felt true and authentic to me. (Shoutout to Daniel Eddy of Winner, who was the first person to give me a platform to cook what I wanted to cook during a pandemic pop-up.)
That’s something else that I admire about Martha. She’s obviously a role model in terms of the boundaries she pushed through and the glass ceilings she shattered. But I think her success lies in the fact that she stayed true to herself throughout it all. She never compromised on who she was and broke all the rules to get to where she wanted to be. And it’s something I absolutely look up to.
I think her success lies in the fact that she stayed true to herself throughout it all. She never compromised on who she was and broke all the rules to get to where she wanted to be. And it’s something I absolutely look up to.— Yara Herrera on Martha Stewart
With Hellbender, it took some time for people to understand what we were about. Mexican food is so often pigeonholed into being a cheap eats cuisine, and being in Ridgewood on top of it, a really mom-and-pop kind of neighborhood, I mean, people would laugh at the prices we charged for our tacos. But honestly, after going through everything that I went through in my career — the burnouts from working in fine dining restaurants, helping to build up a restaurant only to lose it all in six months due to the pandemic, Citi biking across New York City doing all of these pop-ups by myself — I’m at a point where I’m confident in what I’m doing.
I was trained to follow all these rules, and I just threw it all out the window. What should Mexican food be, what you’re allowed to do, how you should cook it, it’s all up for interpretation now. But ever since we opened Hellbender, I’ve also come to realize that it’s not just about what I want or what feels true to me: it’s also about listening to others and finding ways to, not just please people, but to come together. I think that that’s real hospitality.
At the end of last year, we had tamales on the menu and all of these leftover corn husks. Leading up to the holidays, I had the idea to turn the discarded husks into Christmas tree ornaments, which we used to decorate Hellbender. Hospitality lives in those little details. And I think Martha would’ve approved of my corn husk ornaments, too.
As told to Noëmie Carrant, Resy’s Brooklyn-based senior writer and editor.
