From 1898 cookbook to 2 Michelin stars: A chef’s mission to elevate Mexican cuisine<\/a><\/p>\n“It feels kind of surreal. It’s been hard to take time to digest it,” Cantu said.<\/p>\n
The honor has increased the demand for reservations.<\/p>\n
“We had a gentleman from Paris last night and chefs from all over the world. Everybody is just coming in and trying to get a reservation,” said Louis Pedroza, the restaurant’s general manager.<\/p>\n
Gabriel Ornelas, a culinary strategist from Southern California, visited Californios with his father.<\/p>\n
“We have roots in Mexico, so this is special. You are tasting the ingredients, everything that you know, but then the way that it is elevated and the storytelling,” Ornelas said.<\/p>\n
“We grew up eating this type of food, but this is elevated,” said Janet Phan. “It’s kind of familiar, but never in this form. It’s like a piece of artwork.”<\/p>\n
Throughout the restaurant, a focus on consistency extends beyond the food itself. A whiteboard in the kitchen reminds the staff what they are pursuing.<\/p>\n
It proclaims “Everything perfect, all the time” in both Spanish and English.<\/p>\n
“It’s a simple philosophy, but very hard in execution. It takes a lot of dedication from the entire team,” Cantu said. “You have to have people on board to tell that story, to believe in the ingredients, to believe in Mexican cuisine, to believe in serving a taco as being a two- or three-star dish.”<\/p>\n
The pursuit of that standard begins well before guests arrive, from preparing the dining room to reviewing service details, like ironing the linens that go on the tables.<\/p>\n
“Every day we look at service and all the different nuances of how we can elevate the experience. We want everything to be crisp, clean and just kind of ready for when guests walk in,” Pedroza said.<\/p>\n
Both Cantu and Pedroza acknowledged the pressures that come with operating a three-star Michelin restaurant, while emphasizing sustainability for staff members.<\/p>\n
Some of that pressure can be seen in the Hulu series “The Bear.”<\/p>\n
“The show ‘The Bear’ does a great job of showing a lot of anxiety and pressure and like the intensity, but ‘The Bear’ is too stressful to go home and watch that. It’s like I need something more relaxing when I get home,” Cantu said.<\/p>\n
Pedroza said maintaining employee wellbeing remains a priority.<\/p>\n
“With the added pressure of having the third star, I think what I personally am looking at now is sustainability. It’s a very physical and mental job. We’re on stage every night. and I always kind of like talk to the employees about taking care of themselves,” he said.<\/p>\n
Despite reaching the highest Michelin rating, Cantu said Californios is continuing to evolve.<\/p>\n
“We’re still young. We still have plans. This isn’t a museum. Like the dishes that are here now won’t be here forever. We’re constantly trying to push ourselves with texture and flavor. Mexican cuisine is already very complex and vast cuisine. You don’t have to rethink it. You just have to make it happen,” he said.<\/p>\n
Cantu’s next project is writing a cookbook on his vision of Mexican cuisine.<\/p>\n
Copyright \u00a9 2026 KGO-TV. All Rights Reserved.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"SAN FRANCISCO (KGO) — Precision is evident throughout the kitchen at Californios, where chefs carefully slice beef, mound…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":466212,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[30],"tags":[183588,183585,183582,183586,183587,183583,101,103,183584,102,104,106,105],"class_list":["post-466211","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-san-francisco","tag-183588","tag-best-mexican-restaurant-in-the-world","tag-california-3-star-michelin-restaurant","tag-californios-restaurant","tag-chef-val-cantu","tag-mexican-restaurant-3-stars","tag-san-francisco","tag-san-francisco-headlines","tag-san-francisco-michelin-restaurants","tag-san-francisco-news","tag-sf","tag-sf-headlines","tag-sf-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/466211","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=466211"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/466211\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/466212"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=466211"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=466211"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=466211"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}