Maria Rondeau is one half of the Cambridge, MA duo behind acclaimed Celeste, La Royal, Esmeralda and Boston’s forthcoming Rosa y Marigold, a collection of New England-based Peruvian restaurants that she co-owns with partner and chef JuanMa Calderón. An architect by trade, Rondeau designed each of their restaurants, a fitting addition to a more than 20-year career involved in such experimental architecture practices as MOrphosis, office dA and Monica Ponce de Leon Studio; a visiting faculty member position at RISD; and the establishment of Concepcion 41, an experimental artist residency project in La Antigua, Guatemala.

JuanMa Calderón is the chef and co-owner of New England’s acclaimed Celeste, La Royal, Esmeralda and the forthcoming Rosa y Marigold, a collection of Peruvian restaurants that he runs with partner Maria Rondeau. A decade after he and Rondeau first hosted an experimental culinary pop-up out of their Cambridge home, Calderón continues to bring a sense of intimacy and experimentation to his menus that complements the warm, dinner-party atmosphere of their restaurants. A self-taught chef, Calderón has also been an independent video producer and director for more than 30 years, beginning his career in the 90s as a documentarian of the alternative rock, dance and theater scenes in Lima, Peru. He has gone on to develop numerous film and video-art projects internationally, including his latest, Muerte en el Festival, scheduled to be filmed in Lima in late 2025.

La Colectiva Celeste

Interested in multi-disciplinary collaborations, and approaching the dining experience as a spatial and collaborative happening, Maria Rondeau, architect and General Director of Celeste, Esmeralda, La Royal , in tandem with partner and film-maker JuanMa Calderon, open the doors to their home to begin a dinner series that will lead to the establishment of their first restaurant project, Celeste (2018), where Maria designs and manages the spatial sequencing, while JuanMa oversees the menu based on his mother’s recipes. In 2021, Maria and JuanMa open Esmeralda , a seasonal restaurant designed into their own home in Vermont as a return to their original dinner pop-series, where the couple prepare a Pachamanca - a pre-Incan method of cooking in the ground - as a ritual of gratitude towards the Pachamama , Mother Earth. In 2022, La Royal opens half a block from their home in Cambridge, where JuanMa further explores the flavors of Peru, introducing recipes from the Andes and the Amazons, as well as Chifa dishes to celebrate JuanMa’s own Chinese-Peruvian heritage, while Maria transforms a former printing press building into a neighborhood gathering spot. Currently under construction, Maria is designing their fourth restaurant while Chef JuanMa develops a new menu integrating original and classic recipes, Chifa dishes, as well as some of Celeste and La Royal’s greatest hits. Rosa y Marigold, projected to open Fall 2025, is a singular space at the heart of Boston that integrates an open kitchen, a dining room and a bar in ways that both define and reflect each other as separate but inter-related entities. Interested in exploring the fine line between public and private spaces, Maria aims to create spaces that feel at once strange yet familiar, opening up new ways of seeing and participating in the art of dining by introducing new sights and sounds to enhance the experience. Maria remains as General Director and Manager of all projects, while JuanMa is Executive Chef, continuing to grow their team from within, as most of the staff have been with the duo from the very beginning at Celeste, taking on managerial and leadership roles to continue to grow.