¿Cora, hay?
There is always food here for you.
Coray Kitchen takes its name from Coray, the small town in Honduras where Chef Javier Villatoro was born and where his family still lives, farms, and tends the land today.
There is an old story about how the town itself got its name.
From Coray, Honduras to Delmar, New York
Coray Kitchen is the restaurant of husband-and-wife owners Javier Villatoro and Casey Carroll: a project shaped as much by their lives, family, and creative interests as by their years working in food and hospitality.
Casey and Javier met in 2014 while working at Bi-Rite Market in San Francisco. They shared an appreciation for beautiful food, thoughtful hospitality, art, culture, and the particular kind of community that forms when people gather around a table.
In 2018, they moved to the Capital Region to raise their family closer to Casey’s roots in Delmar and to become part of the region’s growing food community. Years later, they opened Coray Kitchen in the town Casey grew up in, naming it for the town where Javier grew up.
Those two places—Coray and Delmar—continue to meet here.
Javier’s Honduran heritage and memories of growing, cooking, and eating food with his family live alongside the farms and seasons of Upstate New York. Casey’s deep relationship to this community informs the way Coray gathers, welcomes, collaborates, and participates in the place it calls home.
Coray continues to become more distinctly itself: a family restaurant, a neighborhood gathering place, and an evolving culinary destination for the Capital Region.
Casey Carroll
Co-Owner · Hospitality, Brand & Community
For Casey Carroll, hospitality is ultimately about how people feel, and what becomes possible when we create spaces where people feel welcomed, cared for, curious, and connected.
An entrepreneur, strategist, and longtime hospitality professional, Casey leads the larger vision and experience of Coray, shaping everything from its brand and guest experience to team culture, events, community relationships, partnerships, and the ways the restaurant continues to grow beyond traditional service.
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Her work is grounded in a belief that restaurants can play an important cultural and civic role in the places they call home. They can introduce people to new ideas and experiences, create meaningful jobs and opportunities for growth, support local producers and organizations, and offer something increasingly rare: a place to gather around a table and be with one another. That philosophy has shaped Coray's approach to Dinners That Feel: the belief that a memorable dinner isn't defined only by what's on the plate, but by the entire experience surrounding it.
Casey is particularly interested in the future of hospitality: building healthier restaurant cultures, developing emerging talent, creating more sustainable models of leadership, and exploring how independent restaurants can become active participants in the cultural and economic life of their communities. In 2026, Casey was recognized by the New York State Restaurant Association as one of its 10 Women to Watch in Hospitality.
Chef Javier Villatoro
Executive Chef & Co-Owner
For Chef Javier Villatoro, cooking begins with curiosity, and with a lifetime of learning through food.
Born in Coray, Honduras, Javier first learned to cook alongside his mother before beginning his culinary career in the United States. His path through professional kitchens took him from dishwasher and prep cook to culinary leadership and, eventually, chef-owner. Along the way, he spent more than a decade with San Francisco’s Bi-Rite family of businesses, developing the technical foundation, respect for ingredients, and appreciation for community-centered food that continue to inform his work.
Today, Coray is where Javier's own culinary voice is most fully expressed.
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His cooking is rooted in his Honduran and Latin American heritage but resists easy categorization. Memories and flavors from home meet techniques and traditions gathered from around the world and the farms, ingredients, and changing seasons of Upstate New York. The result is food that can move comfortably between cultures while remaining distinctly his own: thoughtful without being precious, deeply flavored, and often a little unexpected.
Javier's relationship with ingredients extends beyond the kitchen. A farmer since childhood, he grows vegetables, herbs, fruits, flowers, and botanicals for the restaurant, allowing what is happening in the soil to influence dishes, nightly specials, preservation projects, cocktails, and experimentation throughout the year.
Javier continues to treat the restaurant as a place of exploration. The menu isn't meant to arrive at a fixed destination. It evolves as he does through ingredients, seasons, memory, travel, collaboration, and the simple pleasure of discovering what happens when seemingly different things are brought together.
Press & Media
There are many stories inside a restaurant. Ours span food and cooking, gardening and local agriculture, wine and beverage culture, hospitality and leadership, restaurant workplaces, family business, community, art, and the evolving role independent restaurants can play in the places they call home. Coray Kitchen, Chef Javier Villatoro, and Casey Carroll are available for select interviews, features, podcasts, culinary demonstrations, panels, and other media opportunities.
For press and media inquiries: hello@coraykitchen.com
Recognition
What means the most to us is seeing Coray become part of the community we hoped to serve. Along the way, we have also been grateful to have the work of our restaurant, chef, and team recognized throughout the Capital Region and New York State.
Recent honors include:
NYSRA RISE Award
Favorite Restaurant — Eastern Region
Rising Star Chef
Chef Javier Villatoro
Albany County Bestie Awards
Best Fine Dining
New York State Restaurant Association
10 Women to Watch in Hospitality —
Casey Carroll, 2026