Homaro Cantu, celebrity chef and owner of Chicago restaurant Moto, was found dead of an apparent suicide Tuesday.
Cantu, 38, was found hanging at a building where he planned to open a brewery, and his death is being
investigated as a suicide, the Chicago Sun-Times reported.
“I'm saddened, I'm broken up. This guy was my best friend. He was going to be my business partner,” Trevor Rose-Hamblin, Cantu's brewer and former Moto general manager, said, according to the newspaper.
Cantu grew up in Portland, Oregon, and got his culinary start under famed chef Charlie Trotter.
“Homaro was more than a chef. He was a scientist. That’s why he always came up with goofy and funny ways to eat food,” Giuseppe Tentori, the chef at GT Fish & Oyster, told the Sun-Times.
Cantu, who was known for such things as keeping a laser as a cooking tool and imagining fighting hunger with nutrient-soaked edible paper, had
six patent applications, The New York Times reported.
The chef was inspired by his experiences of homelessness as a child.
He faced a lawsuit filed last month by investor Alexander Espalin, who accused Cantu of misusing restaurant funds to promote other businesses, including a book, “The Miracle Berry Diet Cookbook,” The Times said.
Cantu is survived by his wife, Katie McGowan, and their two daughters.
Twitter users remembered the celebrity chef.
© 2026 Newsmax. All rights reserved.