Our story

The people behind Cariño

Cariño is owned by Executive Chef Norman Fenton and Co-Owner Karen Young, who met at WILD Tulum in Mexico. It opened in December 2023 in the former Brass Heart space in Uptown, Chicago, and earned its first MICHELIN star a year later. See Cariño’s awards and press coverage.

Norman Fenton

Executive Chef & Owner

Norman Fenton’s passion for food began at an early age, cooking in kitchens as a teen in Detroit, MI, before attending the Art Institute of Michigan to further cultivate his culinary skills. Post-graduation, he cut his teeth at restaurants across southeast Michigan before moving to Chicago in 2015. Here, he entered the world of fine dining, working with the prestigious Alinea Group at the world-renowned cocktail lounge The Aviary and then at the MICHELIN-starred fine dining haven Schwa, where he rose through the ranks to become Chef de Cuisine and helped the restaurant keep its MICHELIN star.

In 2019, he took a nine-month road trip from Chicago to Mexico, traveling throughout both countries to immerse himself in the innovative food scene of different locales, finding inspiration in Mexico City, Chiapas, Oaxaca, Michoacán, and Monterrey before finally settling for a period in Tulum. Following a ‘Day of the Dead’ pop-up dining experience Fenton created for WILD Tulum, a friendship was born with the restaurant’s owner Karen Young. Recognizing his talents, she made him executive chef at WILD, where he has brought a casual progressive-dinner style menu to the Tulum gastronomy scene. On this Mexican adventure, Norman met his wife, started a family, and began traveling back and forth from the U.S. to see them while he worked concurrently as executive chef of Brass Heart, a post-modern American fine dining concept in the Uptown neighborhood of Chicago. Following its closure in 2023, Fenton and Young teamed up and took over the Brass Heart space, reimagining it as Fenton’s first chef-owner venture, Cariño.

Norman’s ethos is that food should always provoke fun or emotion. Renowned for his elaborate and innovative dishes created in Chicago and Tulum, he brings a new Latin-inspired tasting menu experience to the city with Cariño, his love letter to the culture and places he holds dear to his heart.

Karen Young

Co-Owner

A former music festival producer, Karen Young traded in promoting global festivals to create a magical off-grid restaurant in the Tulum jungle called WILD Tulum in 2016, a unique entity akin to an art sculpture: dramatic and ethereal. In 2019, she met Chicago fine dining chef Norman Fenton (Brass Heart, The Aviary, Schwa) when he was tapped to do a Day of the Dead pop-up at WILD. The two hit it off, and Young asked him to take over the culinary direction at the restaurant as executive chef while he concurrently ran the post-modern American restaurant Brass Heart back in the Uptown neighborhood of Chicago.

When the opportunity presented itself to take over the former Brass Heart space following its closure, the two partnered to collaborate on Fenton’s first chef-owner venture, combining his culinary talents with Young’s business savvy and passion for creating immersive dining experiences. Together, they created the intimate fine dining restaurant Cariño, Fenton’s love letter to Latin American culture and flavors told through a curated tasting menu. Cariño opened its doors in December 2023.

A longtime humanitarian and activist, Young was a key part of EXIT Festival NGO, championing community and humanitarian causes such as the MTV EXIT (End Exploitation and Human Trafficking) campaign in Eastern Europe, and she has supported the UK-based music therapy charity Nordoff Robbins. As an advocate for the refugee organizations UNHCR, UNRWA, and Choose Love, Young spent time in a Syrian refugee camp in Lebanon after raising thousands of dollars to provide food and essential items. During the COVID-19 pandemic, she launched the ‘Tulum Emergency Food Packages Fundraiser’, raising thousands of dollars and distributing food packages to thousands of families in need with NGOs Tulum Food Bank, Red Sostenible, La Fundación de las Mujeres de Tulum and Los Amigos de la Esquina. She also serves as a guardian for LADLE – Los Amigos de la Esquina, an organization dedicated to empowering Native Mayan and Mexican children in Tulum, which she calls home.

Camille de Haro

General Manager

Born in Madrid and raised in Boston, Camille de Haro grew up in the restaurant world, working at her family’s beloved tapas restaurant, Taberna de Haro, before refining her craft at Barbara Lynch’s acclaimed Menton, where she fell in love with the precision of fine dining. In 2018, she relocated to Chicago and spent two years at Acadia, rising to the position of front-of-house captain, before sharpening her skills at MICHELIN-starred restaurants including Entente, Elske, and Smyth. She later joined Moody Tongue, where the intimacy of the space demanded exacting organization and a mastery of the choreography of service in a small, high-performing dining room.

A part of Cariño’s opening team in 2023, de Haro stepped into her first management role as a front-of-house manager to help shape the identity and culture of Chef Norman Fenton’s modern Latin American restaurant. Since 2025, Camille has served as General Manager, overseeing operations, service, and staff development with an adaptable leadership style that has guided the team through the restaurant’s rapid growth. As part of the leadership team, she helped Cariño earn its first MICHELIN star within its first year, an achievement she considers one of her proudest.

Camille, also a Certified Sommelier, draws on her training to curate menu pairings and guide guests’ orders, skills that complement her guest-first approach on the floor. Equally important to her as the technical side is the culture at Cariño, which de Haro says fosters an atmosphere of authenticity, where staff and guests alike feel free to be themselves. When she’s not at Cariño, de Haro enjoys lakeside time and exploring Chicago’s dining scene, from oysters at Shaw’s Crab House to cocktails at Moneygun and bubbles at Pops for Champagne.

Ray Medina

Beverage Director

A Chicago native, Ray Medina began his career in hospitality at Tru, the acclaimed MICHELIN-starred restaurant where he worked his way up from dishwasher to server over the course of five years. There, he immersed himself in the rigor of fine-dining service, mastering the discipline and hospitality standards that would become the foundation of his career. Next, Medina joined Moody Tongue as a captain in the dining room. Surrounded by the restaurant’s innovative global beer program, he developed a deeper passion for beverages and gained a sommelier’s perspective on beer, diving deep into different styles and regions.

In 2023, Medina joined Cariño as part of the opening team as a front-of-house manager and assisted at the bar, executing the restaurant’s cocktail program, batching and serving drinks, and managing bar service. Over time, he immersed himself more deeply in spirits and cocktail creation, gradually developing his own recipes and refining the bar program. In 2025, Medina took on the role of Beverage Director and created a menu that reflects Cariño’s Latin American identity, with a strong focus on agave spirits and carefully chosen Mexican beers. He also introduced and continues to design inventive mocktail pairings that mirror the creativity of Chef Norman Fenton’s dishes.

For Medina, Cariño stands out because of its intimacy: a small, passionate team working together to deliver exceptional food and drink with warmth. Outside of work, he enjoys time with his three kids, often at basketball games, and likes to keep his meals easy and casual, always scouting the next best Uber Eats deals.

Richie Ribando

Sommelier

Jean Banchet Award–nominated sommelier Richie Ribando, who has led wine programs at several of Chicago’s most lauded restaurants, started in the restaurant industry at sixteen, bussing tables, serving, and eventually bartending in the northwest suburbs of Chicago. Seeking to deepen his expertise behind the bar, Ribando moved to Chicago in 2010, eventually joining farm-to-table restaurant One Sixtyblue, where he developed a passion for Old World wines under the guidance of advanced sommelier Amy Lewis, who inspired him to set his sights on the profession himself.

His wine expertise flourished in 2012, when he became a captain at the acclaimed fine dining spot Next, which won the James Beard Award for Best New Restaurant that year. There, he steered service and helped guide guests through their wine experience. Ribando then took the helm of the beverage program at renowned chef Iliana Regan’s foraging-focused restaurant Elizabeth, helping earn a MICHELIN star for the restaurant in 2013. His exploration continued as he delved into sake as the beverage director of upscale sushi spot Juno while studying through The Court of Master Sommeliers to earn his Certified Sommelier distinction in 2015. Shortly after, Ribando joined the opening team of three-MICHELIN-starred Smyth and sister concept The Loyalist in 2016. After rising from captain to head sommelier in just a year, Ribando eventually left in 2020 to explore the consulting and distribution side of the wine industry.

In his most recent venture, Ribando channels his expertise into crafting the Central and South American-focused wine program for Cariño. Beyond accolades and positions, Ribando’s philosophy centers on demystifying wine, making it approachable and human. He values building connections with diners and colleagues to create a warm, inclusive wine culture.

Recognition

One MICHELIN star, the NYT 50 Best and the James Beard Awards

Cariño has held one MICHELIN star since 2024, was named one of The New York Times’ 50 best restaurants in America in 2025, and Chef Norman Fenton was a 2026 James Beard Award finalist for Best Chef: Great Lakes.

Read the press