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 Narciso Betanzos
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Restaurants Manager
Narciso Betanzos is Restaurants Manager for Casa de Sierra Nevada. He oversees all three restaurants on the property, including the newly-opened Andanza, the garden-setting Parque, and Limon, scheduled to open in October 2007.
Born in Chiapas, on the Pacific coast of Mexico, Betanzos grew up harvesting corn and milking cows. A specialty drink of the area was made by taking the warm, bubbly milk right from the pail and mixing it with rum. He studied in the city of Arriaga, preparing for a medical career, until a vacation in Cancun at the age of 13 opened his eyes to the hospitality industry. “I worked that summer in a fine restaurant, and saw how people enjoyed excellent service,” he says. From that point on, Betanzos was committed to training in hotels and restaurants. |
He studied at the Instituto de Hoteleria y Turismo in Tuxla, while working at a Chiapas hotel, and at 17, went back to Cancun where he began as a part-time steward at the Westin Regina, “empesar desde abajo” he says, working his way up from the bottom, since he was not legally allowed to work full-time until the age of 18. A few years later, while waiting tables at the Ritz Carlton, he met the Belgian ambassador to Mexico, who offered him a position as his butler in Mexico City. There, Betanzos ran the household and planned social events, and at age 20 moved to Brussels when the ambassador returned to Belgium. He learned a bit of Flemish, and saw snow for the first time. “It was scary,” he says, of the snow that would pile halfway up the front door. “I was afraid when I walked that I would fall into a hole I couldn’t see under all that snow.”
Betanzos was back in Mexico City, working at the Ritz-Carlton when Hurricane Wilma hit in October of 2006. Out of work because of the destruction, he went back to the Cancun area, where he spent a year as Captain of the fine dining room at Orient-Express Hotels’ Maroma Resort and Spa. In July 2007, he was asked to go to OEH’s sister property, Casa de Sierra Nevada, to train the staff for the opening of the Andanza restaurant. He loved San Miguel immediately, and was asked to return when his stint ended: “I want to be inside the history of Mexico, to discover the real story of independence for myself. I studied it all in school, and now I am living in the center of Mexican Independence.”
Having worked in many of Mexico’s top-rated hotels, of OEH, Betanzos says, “Orient-Express is best because I feel really me here. The people at OEH make me feel important.” |
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