Pati Jinich

Born and raised in Mexico City, Pati Jinich is the host of the 3x James Beard Award-winning and 4x Emmy nominated PBS television series "Pati’s Mexican Table" going on its tenth season. The series is widely distributed in the US through PBS and streamed worldwide on Amazon Prime.

Pati is the resident chef at the Mexican Cultural Institute in Washington D.C. and author of three cookbooks, "Pati’s Mexican Table: The Secrets of Real Mexican Home Cooking," "Mexican Today: New and Rediscovered Recipes for the Contemporary Kitchen," and "Treasures of the Mexican Table."

A former political analyst focused on Mexican political institutions and US-Mexico relations at the Inter-American Dialogue, Pati holds a master's degree in Latin American Studies from Georgetown University. She switched policy papers for cooking pots to make exploring and sharing Mexico’s cuisine her life’s work.

The Council of the Americas named Pati one of the "Top 5 Border Ambassadors" who have performed outstanding work bringing the United States and Mexico closer together in their Americas Quarterly (AQ) magazine. She was also named one of the National Immigration Forum’s "Keepers of the American Dream," which honors individuals who embody the spirit of immigrant achievement and contribute to the well-being of immigrants in the US. Pati was invited to cook at the White House for President Obama’s Cinco de Mayo and Easter celebrations.

She was named one of the "100 Greatest Cooks of All Time" by Epicurious in 2017 and was profiled on the front page of The New York Times food section in October 2018 in the feature "Forget the Wall: Pati Jinich Wants to Build a Culinary Bridge to Mexico."

She is a member of the Kitchen Cabinet for the Smithsonian Institution’s National Museum of American History, and her company, Mexican Table, has been certified as a Women Owned Business by WBENC.

Pati is a regular guest on NBC’s "Today Show," CBS’s "The Talk," ABC's "Good Morning America," The Food Network, NPR’s "All Things Considered" and "The Splendid Table," and Univision’s "Despierta America." She has been featured in The Washington Post, Chicago Tribune, and other national and regional press. In addition to writing on her website, patijinich.com, she contributes to a wide array of print and online publications including The Washington Post and The New York Times.

Pati has resided in the Washington, D.C., area for the past 20 years, where she and her husband are raising their three Mexican-American sons.