Let’s talk a little bit about growing up and how food played into that for you.

I grew up in San Antonio in a pretty culturally diverse family—Mexican, Spanish, German, French, English, Irish, and Polish. There was a lot of BBQ and there were always big parties revolving around food.

So how’d you start working in the food industry?

I started working as a dishwasher in this vegetarian Mexican restaurant in San Antonio and then I moved to Austin and got a job at a cheesesteak spot. My next job was a vegetarian restaurant that had a hippie, granola-type, super cool vibe—that’s where everything gelled and I figured out I wanted to pursue cooking as a possible permanent ambition. Soon after, I moved to New York and was there for a couple years. I was fortunate enough to get into some incredible kitchens early on, working for free, like Daniel when they were up on the Upper East Side. Then I got a paying gig at La Côte Basque, where I was introduced to like French cooking. After I was in New York for about six years, I moved to the Bay Area because I was in search of ingredients. In New York it was all technique, but we were getting everything that was incredible in New York from California. So I was able to secure a job over fax—remember faxes??—with Ron Siegel at Charles Nob Hill, I learned about simplicity, really great ingredients, and trying not to mess up the flavors—just keeping it as pure and clean as possible. Soon after working with him for a couple of years, I moved to Santa Cruz and worked with David Kinch.

Is that when you really developed your eclectic cooking style?

I always had mixed flavor profiles that were ingrained in me, and when I moved to New York everything was very classic French. So in California I started becoming exposed to Spanish cooking, Japanese ingredients, and fresh fish. I never really got a chance to travel until much much later in my career, so most of my exploration was through books. I started developing what I imagined these dishes to be—it was my spin on how I thought they should taste. Then when I finally did go to Spain, I realized that all the sauces I made tasted nothing like what I imagined, but it was okay cause I had already developed the way that I wanted them to taste for me. I wanted to reimagine flavors and pair unusual ingredients together. At the end of the day, food needs to be delicious. Doing things just for the sake of being “different” or “weird”—that’s not the way to approach it.

How’d you end up in Los Angeles?

I wanted to start running my own kitchen and when I moved down here it was still the velvet ropes, tuna tartare, and Caesar salad. And I mean, yes—there was Nancy, and Josiah, and Wolfgang, and Splichal who like were the pioneers of Los Angeles and still represent what is amazing and incredible about this city. But as a whole, it was really strange and not what I was expecting.

I ended up in Venice, then I got a job in Hollywood—things were still in a very developmental stage in the city. Soon after I started working at this restaurant in Koreatown called Opus and that’s when I just started doing a $30 tasting menu. I did an à la carte menu that was very all across the board culturally and it was there that I realized there’s a whole demographic in Los Angeles. We had an incredible bounty of ethnic restaurants and then you had the higher end restaurants—but there weren’t any mid-level restaurants that the general public could go to that weren’t so expensive or so unapproachable. That’s when I realized that this is the type of restaurant that needed to happen.

So was that when you decided to start your own restaurant?

Yes, I opened a restaurant called Lazy Ox in Little Tokyo and that’s where we really hit the floor running. I had so much fun cooking there, but there was still something missing. Eventually I found out about a place on 4th & Main St. that was becoming available, so I met the landlord Tom Gilmore. He actually gave me my biggest break because he let a chef that had no previous ownership experience rent one of his spaces. Bäco just evolved rapidly and really became the catalyst.

How’d the other restaurants evolve from there?

Tom had a space open and I’d always wanted to go back to doing a Mexican-style restaurant. I mean, who doesn’t love Mexican food? Then a year later, Tom says, “Do you wanna take over the space right next door to Bar Ama?” So I went for it, and this was a chance for me to get back to my fine dining roots, but trying to make it less stuffy and more approachable. I named it Orsa & Winston after my two dogs and four months later we opened.

4 months later?!

Yes, so within three and a half years I opened the three restaurants. Then nine months later, Tom asked me if I wanted to take over his restaurant on the corner. At this point I was like, “I don’t know if I should do it,” but I really wanted to tap into early American dishes and the comfort food that I grew up with. A year into Ledlow I was just re-imagining the space—I was sitting in the dining room and thought, “I really want Ledlow to be in a smaller, more intimate space.” This was all a conversation I was having with myself and then I thought, “vegetables,” and it was just like, BOOM. There was no looking back because I had made my decision. We closed over Labor Day, we re-opened Ledlow 3 days later, and that Friday we basically opened up a fifth restaurant on the corner called P.Y.T. Everything just happened so smooth and quickly, so I knew it was meant to be. Life’s all about chances and trying to make it happen—it either does or it doesn’t. If it doesn’t, you re-work it—and if it does, then you run with it. It’s a constantly in-motion machine that you just gotta keep taking care of and fixing and adjusting and evolving.

Are you opening up another restaurant soon?

Well we’re actually opening Bäco Shop in Culver City. It’s Bäco to-go and we’re really just keeping it simple. It’s gonna be hyper-ingredient focused as well.

Do you ever sleep?

Not lately.