Every visiting clubhouse has different food offerings for the players that come through. Some clubhouses might offer cheesesteaks. Some, lobster rolls. Some make soul food. There’s something unique about every park.
But it’s no secret that the Yankee Stadium visitors’ clubhouse food is a favorite among many players and coaches across all the teams that come through, including the Angels.
“They just have a lot,” Angels infielder Luis Rengifo said this week during his team’s series with the Yankees. “They have Dominican food, like rice and beans, concón [the crust of crispy rice formed at the bottom of the pot.] The guy who makes it is amazing.”
The chef behind the food, 44-year-old Miguel Ramirez from Santo Domingo, Dominican Republic, has been a clubhouse chef at Yankee Stadium since 2011.
Many have complimented the variety of food Ramirez can make — even Alex Cora, the manager of the Yankees’ arch rivals from Boston, called him “the best in the business” after a game last season.
“The rice and beans and the steak, it’s amazing,” Cora told reporters. “Whatever I want, Latino-wise, they’ll fix it. And the coffee’s good too.”
Although Ramirez is versed in many cuisines, his favorite dishes to prepare are quite simply the ones that are requested of him.
“I can cook whatever they ask for,” Ramirez told the Los Angeles Times in Spanish before Wednesday’s game. “I’ll cook it — normally I put rice and beans and everything else they ask for, I’ll do it.”
Ramirez’s cooking is the favorite away-game food for Angels infielder Gio Urshela — who played for the Yankees for three seasons, but has traversed through their visiting clubhouse while with Cleveland, Toronto, Minnesota and the Angels.
“Good shakes, good coffee, really good everything,” Urshela said this week.
Ramirez, who lives in the Bronx, got his start in the industry in 2007, when he worked at a number of restaurants and hotels as a line chef. Before he started working at Yankee Stadium, he worked as a chef in Hall of Fame closer Mariano Rivera’s former steakhouse, Mo’s New York Grill.
The variety of food Ramirez cooks — “I know how to cook Italian cuisine, Japanese, Hispanic and Latino of course, Mexican, all types,” he said — for any given visiting team speaks to his experience. Over the years, Ramirez has learned how to make everything from sushi to pulled pork. And his knowledge of various cuisines and how to cook in general has come primarily from watching others.
“I like to cook and learn a lot from chefs I worked with in the past and I moved up as I gained more experience,” he said. “I learned to cook by watching all the other chefs with more experience, and just worked hard from there.”
That love and passion for food and cooking is what drives Ramirez.
“The best part of my job is that I really get to do what I enjoy,” he said. “I like to cook a lot. … I come in early, and until I go home I’m fascinated. It’s like a hobby for me.
“The people from here are all very professional, they all come here to do their job. And I love working here.”
