TAKE BACK SUNDAY

Chef Fermín Núñez's answer to the Sunday scaries? Porrón pours and paella for a crowd.

- Khushbu Shah

CHEF FERMÍN NÚÑEZ'S Sunday to-do list looks a bit different than most. While most people are folding piles of laundry and fighting off the Sunday scaries, Núñez, chef and coowner of Suerte and Este in Austin, is busy cleaning out his porrón and preparing ingredients for a giant chicken, chorizo, and seafood paella-one large enough to feed 80 people. That's the minimum number of folks who show up to the 2021 F&W Best New Chef's legendary Dominguitos parties.

Dominguitos, Núñez's Spanish pet name for "Sundays," is the chef's way of reclaiming Sunday by making it a day for community and celebration instead of a churn of chores and stress. He threw the first Dominguitos three years ago. "I was trying to figure out who I was as a person and a chef," explains Núñez, "and I wanted to have friendships that were not necessarily only with chefs." Because people who work in the hospitality industry don't usually have the typical weekend structure of both Saturday and Sunday off, finding downtime in common with people who work nonrestaurant jobs can be a challenge-Sunday is often the one day of overlap. At Dominguitos, "you still get a chance to hang out with the people in your life who are not in the hospitality industry," says Núñez.