Our Team
Mark Liberman Chef/ Co-Owner
Mark was born in SF and raised in the North Bay and Folsom. . He graduated from the Culinary Institute of America in Hyde Park, New York, and has never looked back. With a vision for opening his own family-run restaurant in the tight knit community, he spent nearly two years looking for a restaurant space that could be a part of the East Bay community.
He has had the privilege of working for Chefs Roland Passot, Daniel Boulud and Joel Robuchon to name a few. Most recently, he was the chef/partner of AQ in San Francisco where he was nominated for best New Restaurant by James Beard Awards best new restaurant by Esquire Magazine.
Mark is half Colombian and his family is mostly from the Caribbean coastal cities of Cartagena, Fundacion and Barranquilla. Mago is his first solo restaurant that he opened with his wife Theresa.
Theresa Liberman Co-owner
Theresa Liberman, co-owner and Mark’s wife is a big part of Mago's success. By day she is a User Experience Researcher at Google without a professional culinary background, Theresa's love of food and restaurants helped shape many of the original and new ideas of Mago.
She also loves BTS, traveling, snowboarding and exploring dark alley ways in random cities.
When Mark and Theresa are not working, they love to spend time with their two kids, Mirabelle and Mateo and live in North Oakland.
Emily Freeman- Bar
Emily grew up in various parts of the East Bay Area and was raised in an environment where what you ate was made from scratch. She had always appreciated food and flavors and strongly considered going to culinary school in San Fransisco.
Instead, after high school she whisked herself off to NYC to pursue other creative endeavors. It was there where she entered the world of bartending - even before it was legal to do so. She got her start in dive bars, but always sought to learn more and grow with different opportunities. She has worked in lounges, clubs, wine bars, and neighborhood dives, but where she really found her niche was in the world of restaurants. It was the love of being creative, working among people who have an appreciation for quality, and passion for what they do that made it feel like the right corner of the bar world for her.
These days, Emily still pulls from her love of food by creating cocktails influenced by produce and home-made ingredients. When not at Mago she dabbles in architectural photography and growing an indoor jungle.
Stephen Shafer- Wine Director
Stephen Shafer has enjoyed a meandering career through the restaurant industry, during which he has held practically every role it has to offer. Born in Ohio, he started as a dishwasher and line cook at age 15. At 18, he moved to Grand Rapids, Michigan, where he began to take cooking more seriously. Realizing that cooking for and feeding others gave him immense satisfaction, he dove head first into the culinary world, devoting his time and energy to reading every cookbook he could find. Through this self-education, he was captivated by many restaurants in the Bay Area and realized that his career could only go so far in the Midwest restaurant scene, so he took his talents to the Culinary Institute of America in St. Helena, California.
From Camino, he worked at other notable Bay Area restaurants, including The Slanted Door, Nyum Bai, and Pomet. His time at these restaurants saw him fill a variety of front of house roles, but each left a desire to learn more about wine and curate his own program.
Stephen joined the Mägo team in 2023, drawn to the casual and accessible approach to fine dining. He loves the dynamic creativity that he encounters at work everyday, and finding new pairings for the constantly changing menu is an addictive challenge. He hopes to continue to build a unique beverage program that reflects both his own esoteric taste and showcases the diverse offerings of Latin American winemakers.