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Chef Antonia Lofaso is the executive chef and owner of three acclaimed Los Angeles, California, restaurants: Black Market Liquor Bar (Studio City), Scopa Italian Roots (Venice), and DAMA (Downtown Los Angeles). Though diverse in cuisine and style, each of her restaurants combines deep-rooted, personal culinary traditions with the influence of her globetrotting adventures and formal French training. In addition, Lofaso is a TV personality, mother, and cookbook author of The Busy Mom’s Cookbook: 100 Recipes for Quick, Delicious, Home-Cooked Meals (Penguin).
The young chef cut her culinary teeth as manager at rapper Sean Combs’s restaurant, Justin’s, in New York City, and then attended a one-year program at New York City’s French Culinary Institute. Her next stint was working for Wolfgang Puck at L.A.’s Spago, and Foxtail in Beverly Hills. In 2008, she made her TV debut by participating in the fourth season of Top Chef and came in fourth. She then won third place in Top Chef: All-Stars and next won the title “Duel” in Top Chef Duels.
Presently, Lofaso is the co-host of Food Network’s Worst Cooks in America. She is widely recognized from Celebrity Edition: Heroes vs Villains Tournament of Champions (Seasons 1-5) and as the host of Beachside Brawl. She has served in recurring roles on Guy’s Grocery Games and Supermarket Stakeout, has beaten Bobby Flay, and has been in Chopped, Cutthroat, The Kitchen Restaurant Startup, Bravo’s Top Chef, and CNBC’s Restaurant Startup.
Besides her thriving restaurants and TV career, Lofaso has launched two specialized business endeavors: Chefletics, an athletic-inspired line redefining the traditional fit and function of kitchen apparel, and Antonia Lofaso Catering, executing high-end dining events for up to 2,000 people.
I caught up with the busy entrepreneur in Los Angeles:
You are a TV personality, a cookbook author, a chef, and a mother. Which has been the most difficult?
The cookbook was the easiest. Being a mother has been the most challenging but also the most rewarding. But only having been a mother would never have been enough for me. I always wanted a career that was mine, something I worked hard for, and that I could show my daughter that she could do anything
You were born on Long Island and later moved to L.A. with your family. Did your parents cook?
I come from a line of pizzeria owners, third generation from Naples and Sicily, who owned delis and pizzerias on Staten Island and Long Island. So, there was always food-service history in my family. We moved from New York to Las Vegas and then Los Angeles when I was 11. I worked in L.A. in my parents’ “New York deli” from the time I was 13.
You went to college in New York City; what did you want to do?
I didn’t know. I took random classes and still worked in restaurants as a server, manager, and hostess to pay my bills. I then worked at a restaurant with a woman chef, with no real roadmap to understanding the culinary world; I just knew there was an opportunity to go to school and cook.
How did you get the job working for Wolfgang Puck at Spago in Beverly Hills?
What most people don’t know about the food service is that you don’t need a big résumé to apply at these restaurants. They prefer it when you’re straight out of school and have no real history because then they don’t have to worry about any bad habits you may have picked up from other restaurants. They get to train you from the start.
How long did you stay at Spago?
Almost 10 years. I spent a year doing salads before I was allowed to move on to pasta and worked my way through every station. I learned everything I could and then left to go out on my own.
What did you learn from Wolfgang Puck?
He taught me how to make the perfect omelet. He was very hands-on, and once he caught me making an omelet that he didn’t approve of, so he made it his mission for over a year that every time he saw me, he made me make an omelet. It was an entire tutorial, and now I actually make one of the greatest French omelets because of that situation.
As a cook, he stressed me out so much about this omelet. But about a year into it, he walked into the kitchen, and I was working a separate station, and he said there was a certain V.I.P. in the dining room, and that we had just gotten winter Italian truffles, and that this V.I.P. wanted an omelet immediately. He glanced across the entire line of cooks, probably about 15 of us, and he told me to go make the omelet. That moment was the most terrifying but also the most gratifying because every single cook knew that I was chosen to make the omelet, which meant I knew what I was doing. It was a brilliant moment.
What came after Puck?
I started working for SBE to open the very first supper club. At the same time, a PR company was looking for women for the next season of Top Chef. Having no idea what I was getting into, I went on my very first reality television show in 2006 and ended up making it to the finale. I came home and had done so well that SBE decided that instead of making their new restaurant a little supper club, it would be a full-fledged restaurant.
I wasn’t prepared; the kitchen wasn’t big enough, and they were trying to do it last minute. Because of my appearance on Top Chef, they knew they’d get press. The restaurant stayed open for only about a year. I was demotivated and humbled, but it was probably the best thing that ever happened to me because, since then, my three restaurants have all been under my direction.
I’m always the loudest person screaming in the room, and that’s what’s worked out for me. But you know, it’s one of those very, very hard lessons that you learn, and sometimes the way you don’t want to learn it. So even though it was a very hard, unhappy lesson to learn, it was a very, very important one. So, the restaurant had failed. They called me to do Top Chef: All-Stars. They said I was so good on the first one, didn’t I want to do it again? That was the most torturous thing I’ve ever done in my entire life. And at the same time, I was getting ready to sell my book, and my manager said, ‘You go on Top Chef and do this again, the book is going to sell for more money than it would have had you not been so current.’ So, I did Top Chef Four, and then Top Chef Eight, which was All-Stars. I made it to the final three. At that time, I started working for Eddie Murphy because I was like, ‘Oh, let me just do some private chef work on the side. Let me try and get my mojo back,’ as I was feeling really, like, sad and upset about what happened at the restaurant. I worked for him for about a year and enjoyed cooking again. Got back into my life, got back into the love of cooking.
Now you have three California restaurants. How did that happen?
I met some people looking for a chef, which led to us opening Black Market Liquor Bar in Studio City, an American eclectic restaurant, now open for 13 years. Two years later, we opened Scopa Italian Roots in Venice, California, a quintessential American Italian restaurant with a California flair, open 11 years. DAMA, my third restaurant in L.A., is Latin-inspired but a mixture of Spanish, Mexican, Portuguese, Cuban, and Colombian.
What is your favorite food to make?
That’s like trying to pick your favorite child. But one of my most favorite foods to make and eat is tacos. I’ll wrap anything in a tortilla and eat it.
How would you describe your technique?
It’s rooted in French basics because of my work with Wolfgang Puck. My technique is disciplined, very focused, and about the execution of everything, whether it’s a sauce, a protein or produce – it’s taking care of each of those things the way I learned the basics from the best.
Where did you develop your sense of taste?
I always just knew good food. I think that chefs have a lot of skills in the same way artists do. Whether you’re in music or painting or architecture, we don’t always know where it comes from, but I think my ability to taste food is a lot of intuition and a lot of something I was born with.
Where do you get your inspiration?
From anything. I mean, I get inspiration from the street taco dude and from seeing what other chefs do under duress, trying to cook something quickly. I get inspiration from eating in other people’s restaurants, reading cookbooks, traveling the world, eating everything from street food to fine dining. There’s no limit and no book to follow. I look at food everywhere.
How do you know that the flavor you create is what people want?
Because I know what I like to eat. When I build the menus, I build them based on what I want.
What is your philosophy about food?
It doesn’t have to be that serious, it just has to be good. I remember when Instagram started, they said, ‘your food needs to look better.’ I’m not going to compromise the way a dish should be constructed, because the way you construct it is the way you want someone to eat it. For me, it just needs to be the most delicious thing I’ve ever done. •
By Margie Goldsmith
