MOZO®, the shoe company for people who work on their feet, recently announced a partnership with three award-winning chefs to create a signature footwear collection designed by each chef – in order to give style, quality, and affordable options to the restaurant industry and the home cook. If you’re unfamiliar with the word, ’mozo’ derives from the frontier. During cattle round-ups, a ’mozo’ was the helper, always on his feet – and the founder of MOZO® shoes, Jim Agnew, worked to engineer shoes for those individuals who spent long hours on their feet.
You never know when you’re going to fulfill a need. Almost as soon as MOZO® shoes became available, the company started hearing from culinary professionals. People in all kinds of kitchens were choosing MOZO® for work. One Whole Foods baker wrote to the people at MOZO®, telling them how MOZO® shoes kept her staff from slipping on dough.
MOZO®’s partnership with Chefs Marcus Samuelsson, Aaron Sanchez, and Chris Cosentino was recently celebrated at the GE Monogram Design Center, Architects & Designers Building in New York.
The MOZO® Chef Signature shoe collection includes Samuelsson’s “Uptown” model, while Sanchez’s shoe, “Red Skull,” features a red-stitched Mexican sugar skull. Cosentino’s shoe, called the “Fifth Quarter,” is in white, with tripe imprinted on the front.
Apart from the MOZO® shoes, the evening featured charcuterie from Cosentino’s San Francisco restaurant, Boccalone.
In addition, the three award-winning chefs created several of their signature dishes, including: dirty rice and shrimp, gravlax with purple mustard, crab tostadas, coconut ceviche, venison tartare & foie gras crostino, nduja & sardine crostino.
Cocktails included a classic Negroni, a Latinopolitan, and – in honor of Samuelsson’s new hit Harlem restaurant – a Big Red Rooster.
Best of all? At night’s end, MOZO® donated a check for ten thousand dollars to Careers Through Culinary Arts Program, which provides career opportunities for underserved youth by linking public high school culinary teachers and their students to the food service industry.
Wear MOZO® Chef Signature shoe collection for health – and a good cause.
