Your Chicago: The Chef At La Diosa
(CBS) -- A new restaurant opened in Lincoln Park recently. It's a small one, with only four tables.
It's not the size of the restaurant that makes it noteworthy, CBS 2's Kate Sullivan reports. It's the chef and the way she looks at the world.
On a busy stretch of North Clark Street sits La Diosa, which translates to "the goddess."
It's a simple restaurant offering Mexican fusion and comfort food.
But it's the woman chopping, stirring and tasting behind the scenes that deserves all the attention.
Laura Martinez is blind, and this is her restaurant. Cancer robbed her of eyesight when she was just one. Her love of cooking started in college because she hated the food in her school's cafeteria.
She went on to study at Chicago's Le Cordon Blue, eventually landing a job with famed chef Charlie Trotter.
"He was the first to give me a chance professionally," Martinez says.
Now, she is currently the only blind chef in the country to open her own restaurant.
The food is so delicious no one knows the chef is blind. After eating there, Mary Kirby wrote to CBS 2 about her experience.
"First of all, you could tell how fresh it was," Kirby says.
Martinez works side by side with her husband Mauri, who serves as her eyes
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