Chef Carlos Mortera Reflects On Lassoing The Catering Event Of The Year: Apple TV’s Ted Lasso Show

When Carlos Mortera started his catering business last year, he was looking to wind down from the chaotic and arduous lifestyle that comes with being a restaurant owner. He closed his KCK restaurant Poio Mexican BBQ in 2023, hoping to spend more time with his family. Little did he know, this pivot would provide him with one of the biggest opportunities of his career: catering for Apple TV’s hit show Ted Lasso.  

While filming in KC for the last two weeks of July, Mortera says the Ted Lasso production team originally planned on bringing in a caterer from Chicago. However, producers were tipped off that Mortera’s local catering company Golden Brown had plenty of experience working on film sets. 

“The initial idea of Golden Brown was to do productions,” says Mortera. “There’s a lot of commercials shot in Kansas City, and with the new tax credits that Missouri is giving to productions companies, I was like ‘hey, I can do this by catering to them and have a niche.’” 

While Ted Lasso filmed in KC, clips of the show’s star Jason Sudeikis circulated on social media as he was seen shooting at landmarks throughout the city, like the Country Club Plaza. It’s been speculated that Ted Lasso, which is plotted around Sudeikis playing an American football coach that unexpectedly transitions to manage a British soccer team, was possibly filmed in KC due to the World Cup being hosted here next year. But Mortera can’t speak on that. When asked about any interactions with the cast, he gives the answer of someone who is under contract to not spill juicy details.

“We’re all there to do a job,” he says. “The cast has respect for everyone in the crew and they’re very professional.” 

No phones are allowed on set, although Mortera says he was able to sneak a picture with Brendan Hunt, who doubles as the show’s co-creator and featured actor portraying Coach Beard, before filming wrapped up. (Mortera had already met Sudeikis while catering for Thunder Gong, an annual concert benefit based in KC). Despite having worked on film sets before, and regularly catering to large high end parties and fundraisers like the Charlotte Street Foundation, Mortera says the Ted Lasso gig was the most intense. Working 16, sometimes 18, hour days while catering to the various diets of the cast during some of KC’s hottest weeks, is something he describes as “grueling.”

A typical day catering on the Ted Lasso set consisted of Mortera waking up at 3 am and, with his team of five chefs, preparing a continental-style breakfast buffet. Mortera needed to prepare enough food to feed up to three different departments for each meal, so, in addition to a large buffet, his crew also brought a food trailer to prepare specialty items and meals that catered to the cast’s various dietary needs.

Breakfast was usually ready by 5:30 am. By 11 am, Mortera and his team would break down the buffet and head back to their Midtown kitchen to begin preparing lunch. Lunch, served during the last half of the day anywhere between 2 and 5 pm, was where Mortera was able to showcase his signature cooking-style, a blend of Mexican, barbecue and Asian influences and prepared using French techniques. 

“A lot of food that we made showcased Kansas City’s diverse culture that we have,” says Mortera. “We have a big Vietnamese community so we did Vietnamese food one day. Of course, we had to have barbecue. We did Mexican food, street tacos, Korean food.”

One of Mortera’s favorite memories on set was introducing churros to an executive producer from England. According to Mortera, several English producers arrived during filming and were delighted to try his food because much of it they had never had before. It became his goal to introduce them to a new food each day. They reveled in his chipotle-style buffet and he even taught them how to make a frito pie, a Southwestern comfort meal that involves putting chili and cheese in a bag of Frito chips.

“I like to cook food that I like to eat,” says Mortera. “And a lot of the producers were really cool. They were really down to earth.”

As the producers prepared to fly home, Mortera prepared churros for them to take on their homebound flight.

Now that Mortera has had some time to reflect on the chaotic and fulfilling two weeks of catering for one of Apple TV’s most beloved series, he says that it was a lesson in “adaptability.”

“Things change all the time,” says Mortera. “There’s a saying in film: you have to have the urgency to stand around. Sometimes they need you right away, but they won’t give you direction, so you just have to stand there until they tell you what to do.” 

Filming locations were also revealed on short notice, so Mortera would find himself suddenly needing to prepare food for 400 people to shoot at the KC Current stadium at the drop of a hat. Whether they were filming in the River Market or near Swope Park, inside or outside underneath a giant tent, he and his crew had to make it work.

“Sometimes in that food trailer, it could get up to 130 degrees,” says Mortera. “That’s why we decided to prepare everything offsite instead of in the truck, so we don’t get heat exhaustion.”

After such an intense catering event, you’d think Mortera would prioritize rest. Instead he went right back to his usual local work. 

“Because I’m a crazy person, the day after production wrapped up I had a food styling gig for T-Mobile,” Mortera says. ”My wife said I need to book myself a hotel so I can just sleep all day. I did that then I got a haircut. For those two weeks [catering], I only had a week to prepare for it, so I’m trying to get myself back together.”

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