by TM Petaccia

When Luis Rojas Villegas talks about desserts, his voice shifts to equal parts precision and wonder. Specialty Chef at Charlotte Marriott City Center in Uptown, the recently named 2025 NCRLA Pastry Chef of the Year is quick to trace his culinary journey back to his earliest mentors, competitions, and a deep love of chocolate.

“I’m originally from Mexico,” he says. “I came to the U.S. when I was 13 in 2003. I went to high school at East Mecklenburg High School, where I met my mentor, Dale Richardson. She put me on the path of competing. We did a lot of competitions through high school with FCCLA (Family, Career, and Community Leaders of America). During my last year I did a ‘Best Team Chef of the Year’ through Johnson and Wales,” he recalls. “And I won first place.”

Competition, he explained, has never been about trophies. It’s about growth. “Competing has always been something I like to do to push myself.” That drive carried him to Johnson & Wales University on a full scholarship, into kitchens on the savory side, and eventually to the Gaylord Palms Resort & Convention Center in Orlando, where he immersed himself in pastry work at large resorts.

“I fully engulfed myself in pastries, chocolate work, and more flavor development,” he says. “That’s actually what got me into pastries. The ability to play with different techniques, colors, textures, shapes, and forms.”

The dish that earned him the Pastry Chef of the Year title speaks volumes about his philosophy: a honey goat cheesecake with a honey tuile, caramelized honey crèmeux, hot honey, and caramel glaze. “All the components were locally sourced: the cheese, the cream, the eggs, the flour. Everything came from North Carolina farms.”

The winning dessert was indeed a tour of North Carolina farms and included ingredients from Goat Lady Dairy, Harmony Ridge Farms, Hill Top Farms, Honeysuckle Hill Bee Farm, and Riverbend Creamery. “Our restaurant [Stoke] is pretty much farm-to-table,” he says. “We don’t buy from any big companies. Everything’s sourced through our local vendors.”

Villegas sees competitions as practice for leadership. “I try to push the team to visualize plating, not only on the hot side, but on the sweet side as well,” he explained. “Not to just put shrimp and grits on a plate. How can we plate it to make it more fun, more interactive for the guests? How can we build it up? How can we cut it differently?”

At Charlotte Marriott City Center, his responsibilities include help managing the kitchen and desserts at Stoke as well as overseeing the pâtisserie program at the hotel’s coffee shop, Coco and the Director. “I do both pastries and savories,” he said. “Right now, we’re focusing on Coco, building more pastries, more cakes, more cookies. We recently hired a pastry cook, so we’re starting that process off.”

When it comes to developing desserts, Villegas starts with the calendar. “What season are we in?” he says. “We work very closely with our farmers when we think about flavor profiles. What do we want to achieve? Do we want to do a cake? A petit gâteau? A sensory-type dessert?”

From there, it’s a team effort. “We sketch it out. We brainstorm. Does it need a crunch? Does it need something else? We play with the recipes until we get it right.”

He wants his creations to balance indulgence with intention. “I don’t want a super sweet dessert that does not have any character to it. I like to balance my desserts.”

When asked what excites him now, Villegas doesn’t hesitate. “I love working with chocolate. That’s been my passion. Learning how to do chocolate sculpting, casting, creating different showpieces for events. With chocolate, you can’t just melt it and go. You have to temper, mold, cast. It’s about finding new ways to create shapes and forms.”

Chocolate opened the door to seeing desserts as art. “With savory food, it’s a little harder. But with pastry, you can play more with textures, shapes, and colors.” That effort netted him Chocolatier of the Year at last year’s National Pastry Conference held in Charlotte.

Villegas also enjoys weaving in surprises. “I like to incorporate savory into desserts just because it’s different,” he explained. “If I do a strawberry petit gâteau, instead of just doing strawberries and strawberry jelly, I’ll add a little bit of Aleppo pepper to give it a kick or other things you don’t usually find.”

For him, the balance between sweet and savory, local and global, traditional and experimental, is the mark of a dessert worth remembering.

“I’m a very simple guy,” he says. “I love pushing myself. I love pushing my team. And I love creating desserts that tell a story.”