Celebrity chef Homaro Cantu was found dead in Chicago on Tuesday, hanging in a building he had aspirations to open a brewery in.
Cantu, who has appeared on cooking shows like Iron Chef, Hell's Kitchen and Dinner Impossible, was 38 years old.
Police told Chicago Tribune his death is being investigated as a suicide. An autopsy will be performed on Wednesday.
Cantu's brewer and former general manager of his restaurant, Moto, said, “I'm saddened, I'm broken up. This guy was my best friend. He was going to be my business partner.”
Cantu, or Omar to friends, was a “mad scientist,” according to his friend Michael Taus.
Taus told NBC Chicago he’s “devastated” over Cantu’s suicide, saying, "I don't think there's anybody like Omar. I mean, he was shooting for the moon. He didn't know the word, 'No,' and he was just always experimenting.”
People reports one of those experiments was the miracle berry, which Cantu decided to use as the focus of his restaurant iNG (which has since closed) and his coffee bar Berrista.
His restaurant Moto was the focus of Planet Green/Discovery Channel network’s Future Food because of his use of science with cooking.