Our first Chef Chat for 2015 is with Arnaldo Richards of Picos. It used to be called Picos Mex-Mex when it was still in the Bellaire area. About eight months ago, though, the restaurant relocated to the former Ninfa's spot on Kirby at Richmond, and this November it changed its name to Arnaldo Richards' Picos. It gained a tagline, too: Seven Regions of Mexican Cuisine. This was to better highlight that Picos is serving authentic dishes from all across Mexico.

Richards has been cooking in professional kitchens since he was 14 years old and the original Pico's location existed for 30 years before the move. In Part One of this chef chat, we'll find out how Richards's culinary journey led him to open one of Houston's most beloved Mexican restaurants.

EOW: Where were you born?

AR: I was born in Mexico.

EOW: At what age did you come to the United States?

AR: I was 18.

EOW: So, you were in Mexico for all of your childhood. What were some of your best memories growing up?

AR: It's hard to say. I played football for nine years, so that was a big part of my life. My parents had restaurants since I was three years old, so I grew up in the restaurant business.

EOW: What were your parents' restaurants like?

AR: We had several. My mom started in cafeterias in hospitals, so she was basically feeding the patients' relatives. That's how she started out. She was given an opportunity by a doctor friend of hers. It was well known that she was a good cook. She started a restaurant. It was very successful, and then she went on to open other, different concepts.

She had a second cafeteria in another hospital. She did very well on that one. My parents opened their first high-end, full-service restaurant in '65. It was in a plush area -- like saying the "River Oaks of Monterrey." That's where I grew up -- in Monterrey. I was the only one of my siblings who was born in Mexico City. My parents went there for one year. I happened to be born there and they don't forgive me for that. (laughs) People from Mexico City have the same thing as people from New York here in Houston.

EOW: So, it's like you're a Yankee (laughs)

AR: Yeah, but I wasn't raised there, so I'm not a typical chilango. Anyway, we even had a fried-chicken place. It was called Pollo Frito Norteño, with the typical secret recipe with 27 spices. My mother came up with that and they were very successful. My mom and my dad were notorious for opening restaurants, building them up and selling them.

My dad also had the concessions for a plush country club. He did that for about three years, made it very successful, then sold it to a larger company that dedicated themselves to that.

The first place that I actually managed, I was around 14 or 15 years old, was in downtown Monterey. All we sold were flautas. It was only for lunch. My mother would drop me off with all of the stuff to prepare: the beef, the tortillas and the chicken. I had some employees, and all we did were beef and chicken flautas.

EOW: But still, you were managing your first restaurant at age 15.

AR: I was pretty much managing. Of course, my mother was very involved, but I was there from opening to closing. We opened, we made a certain amount of flautas and when we were out, we were out.

My passion for cooking came from the restaurant. I was helping my mother, but I was also making the sauces and boiling the chicken. It became easy for me

EOW: What brought your family to Houston?

AR: Actually, it was me who came to Houston. I was an exchange student. That's how I first came, back in 1976. I was in upstate New York because I had gotten a scholarship to Cornell from the Mexican government. I was staying in a town about 60 miles from Ithaca. I was going back and forth, doing the interviews and testing. Back in the '60s, we didn't have the luxury of the Internet or any of that, so you had to actually go there and use snail mail. It took weeks.

I had already gone and done the interviews and was told I needed to take some courses to refine my English so I could go to school. During that period, the gentleman who was my political sponsor in Mexico lost his job. There went my scholarship.

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