Just over three years ago Josef Centeno was what he describes as a ‘Band-Aid chef’, rescuing restaurant kitchens in need of a chef. Today, he runs three of the most popular restaurants in Downtown LA. Kerstin Kühn meets the chef.
Less than a decade ago Downtown LA was a dire place synonymous with boarded-up structures and the homeless of Skid Row. It was where people came to work but not to play, a ghost town at night and during weekends. But over the past few years, the area has experienced a phenomenal revival. Derelict old buildings have been restored and turned into hotels and apartment blocks, new bars and eateries have sprung up everywhere and today, Downtown is home to some of LA’s most celebrated restaurants.
One of a handful of chefs who have pioneered this restaurant revolution is Josef Centeno. Known for his creative menus, skilful cooking and gutsy flavours, served up in a trendy setting that is as laid back as a Californian hippy, he’s taken Downtown LA by storm. “The last five years in LA have been incredible and you’re pretty lucky to live here if you like to eat,” he says. “In San Francisco and New York you have a very established restaurant scene, with diners who really know how to eat. In LA it’s still growing and it’s given young chefs like me the opportunity to come to a major city and get their feet wet.”
Over the past three years, Centeno has opened three restaurants that have helped to define not just Downtown but LA’s fledgling dining scene. There’s
Bäco Mercat, with a menu of small plates inspired by the flavours of the Mediterranean and signature flatbread sandwiches that are filled with
soft-shell crab, lamb meatballs or beef tongue schnitzel. Then there’s
Bar Amá, which serves Tex-Mex comfort food with a modern twist. And there’s
Orsa & Winston, a contemporary restaurant that has – together with Ludo Lefebvre’s Trois Mec and Ari Taymor’s Alma – helped to cement a new wave of fine dining restaurants in LA by embracing tasting menus of high-end food but rejecting the usually accompanying formalities.
Although very different in their cuisine, all of Centeno’s restaurants have one thing in common: they offer accomplished cooking, great drinks and a vibrant atmosphere all at an affordable price. Indeed Centeno seems to have had the Midas touch with his restaurants, which collectively serve up to 600 diners a night. But he hasn’t just got lucky and it is years of hard work that have helped him fine-tune his winning formula.
Fine Dining Background
Growing up in Texas, Centeno realised he wanted to be a chef when he worked at a vegetarian student café while studying English and Anthropology at college. From there he moved to New York to work at some of the city’s top fine dining destinations, including Daniel Boulud’s Daniel, Jean-Georges Vongerichten’s Vong, La Côte Basque and Les Célébrités. “They were all very classic French restaurants, the gastronomic temples of the time,” he recalls. “But it was a hard grind and they were ruthless kitchens. You fought everyday to keep your job. It was intense. In those days being hit or humiliated was normal and I know so many people who quit because they couldn’t stand it. It takes a sadomasochist to make it in this industry.”
He says he gained ‘stamina’ and developed a ‘tough skin’ but after six years, he’d had enough and left ‘cold, dark’ New York for the sunny climes of California, where he landed a job with acclaimed chef Ron Siegel at Charles Nob Hill in San Francisco. “That really set a different tone for me. I came from very classic French sauces and techniques to this very fresh, light style of cooking,” he says. “I started learning about simplicity, about using incredible ingredients and not messing with them.” He then joined David Kinch at Sent Sovi and followed him to the now two-Michelin-starred Manresa, which he opened as chef de cuisine: “David taught me how to think outside of the box, how to search for the best ingredients and keep the flavours simple.”
Simplicity
It’s this philosophy of simplicity that has stuck with Centeno, who left Manresa in pursuit of opening his own restaurant. He moved to LA, where after working in the kitchens of Meson G and Opus as ‘Band-Aid chef’ (taking over after previous chefs had been fired) and running a short-lived eatery called Lazy Ox Canteen,
