Ana Aguilar and Joshua Cook
Tantísimo | Nashville TN
July 2026
Ana Aguilar and Joshua Cook met while working at Husk in Nashville, Tennessee, where they fell in love with hospitality—and each other. Cook, a Nashville native, started staging at Husk in 2017, meeting formative mentors like Chefs Katie Coss and Nate Leonard who instilled in him a respect for the kitchen and a strong work ethic. Over his three years there, he became a sous chef, and then executive sous chef, before taking a brief pause from the restaurant industry.
Aguilar, originally from Guadalajara, Mexico, began serving at Husk to support her acting career. Inspired by the detail and precision in the kitchen, Aguilar began making pastries at home and, during the pandemic, started selling her desserts at Rising Stars alum Julio Hernandez's Mexican food truck. In 2021, she secured her own pop-up, Tantísimo, at the Richland Park Farmers Market in Sylvan Park, broadening from pastries to family recipes and Latin American dishes like escabeche and tostadas. Cook helped Aguilar fill in the gaps with his kitchen knowledge and they quickly became business partners.
In 2023, Aguilar and Cook signed on to take over the kitchen at the cocktail bar Henry James. Not ones to sit still, they opened their food truck Mala Vida simultaneously, where they sold late-night bar food like their Hambré 3000 Nachos. In 2024, the duo signed a lease in Sylvan Park, a block from the farmers market where Tantísimo began, and opened their first brick-and-mortar in May 2025.
At the restaurant, Aguilar and Cook serve pan-Latin American cuisine that comforts while uplifting local Tennessee produce through dishes like churrasco steak with fermented leek chimichurri, yuca fries, sofrito, and a fried egg. They host weekly instructor-led bachata dance classes and donate proceeds from their pan de "bueno" to causes like the Southern Smoke Foundation. The team is also taking over the menu at the Sylvan Park Boarding House, the neighborhood's recently renovated historic bed and breakfast, extending their commitment to the community they've helped shape.
