20. Border Grill Making Waves Using Strictly Sustainable Seafood

Mary Sue Milliken and Susan Feniger, chefs and co-owners of Border Grill, were inspired by authentic Latin flavors they first discovered in the kitchen of a French restaurant. During staff meals, the pair enjoyed Oaxacan and the Yucatecan home cooking prepared by their fellow cooks from Mexico.

After falling for the cuisine, they traveled to Mexico to get a comprehensive understanding of the flavors. They then brought that knowledge back to California and put their own spin on it to create the Latin-fusion restaurant Border Grill.

“Susan and I are just mostly focused on the flavor, and we’re not too caught up on authenticity. We love things to be authentic but, you know, over these 30, 40 years we’ve been cooking, we’ve seen that at one point fusion had a real bad name, and now I think that fusion can be done right, so we’re not hung up on what the dish has to be other than really delicious,” Milliken said.