For a city obsessed with youth, it was surprisingly hard for me to track down three emerging chefs in Los Angeles under the age of 30—a testament to the fact that most chefs who have made waves in the L.A. dining scene are hospitality veterans (as they should be, if you ask me). I suspect it’s because many young culinary talents are choosing, instead, to work as private chefs, and who can blame them? The hours are better, the pay higher, even if you’re only really feeding the rich. It takes a certain kind of personality and inner strength to choose to feed the masses, with all the headaches of running a brick-and-mortar operation and the restaurant industry’s razor-thin profit margins.
Thus, I find it even more special to announce the Los Angeles class of Time Out’s Best Young Chefs. Despite the challenges of the restaurant industry and the current economic climate, all three upstarts have managed to carve their own path and make a name for themselves, sometimes with the help of social media virality and content creation. Their routes to success have taken on various forms: a viral Pasadena bakery, a Smorgasburg pop-up (with a West L.A. residency) and a high-profile pastry chef gig at one of the city’s best restaurants, now parlayed into a chef de cuisine role at one of L.A.’s buzziest fall openings. Get to know their stories below, and you’ll quickly understand why these emerging chefs are poised for culinary greatness.
