Four years ago, Amar Santana decided to step outside of Orange County to open a second Vaca restaurant. The Spanish-themed Costa Mesa fine dining establishment, known for indulgent tapas, paellas and dry-aged steaks, has been doing gangbusters since Santana opened it while competing in Season 13 of Bravo’s “Top Chef” a decade ago.
His runner-up finish bolstered visits to the Segerstrom Center for the Arts adjacent restaurant. Riding that momentum—and his growing national profile—Santana and his longtime business partner Ahmed Labbate set their sights on Los Angeles, signing a lease at The Beaudry, a residential high-rise by Brookfield Properties in downtown LA.
Construction delays, however, stalled the tower’s opening, forcing Santana and Labbate to wait longer than they’d expected to open the restaurant. After about a year of construction, Vaca Los Angeles finally opened in late 2025. Local philanthropist and writer Pam Roy is a major investor.
“This is a long time coming,” Santana told the Business Journal during a visit to the restaurant in mid-December.
$5 Million Restaurant
The LA outpost—located in one of the region’s most expensive markets—represents roughly a $5 million investment, though much of the cost was offset by tenant improvement support, Santana and Labbate told the Business Journal.
Is it their most expensive project to date? No. The ambitious, multi-concept The Hall Global Eatery at South Coast Plaza cost more to build. The ill-timed opening came several weeks before the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic, where labor challenges proved insurmountable once restaurants reopened dining rooms. It closed at the end of 2021.
The Hall closure didn’t stop the duo, who met while working at Charlie Palmer at Bloomingdale’s.
Like many things in Santana’s life, the pursuit of Los Angeles was serendipitous.
Santana said he had long eyed downtown LA, but he had trouble finding a spot. Most opportunities were “second-generation restaurants,” which he wasn’t keen on.
Then one day, he and Labbate struck up a conversation with a Brookfield executive who was dining at Broadway by Amar Santana, the Laguna Beach restaurant that the duo opened in 2011.
The executive mentioned an upcoming mixed-use project in downtown LA that needed a restaurant tenant, and within weeks, the conversations turned serious. The location near FIGat7th mall and less than a mile from Crypto.com Arena seemed ideal.
“We came to look at the space, and we’re like, okay, let’s do it,” Santana recalls.
The Look
The restaurant, which offers the same menu as Costa Mesa’s Vaca, occupies a narrow footprint with very low ceilings. Still, a team of designers reworked the space to create an airy, polished dining room that mirrors the upscale feel of its Costa Mesa sibling, Santana said.
“The designers—they’re really amazing,” said the chef, adding that the kitchen is about four times bigger than the one in Costa Mesa.
But again, there was one tiny hitch with this new launch.
Just before the restaurant officially opened in November, Santana was thousands of miles away—leading a long-planned culinary trip to Morocco with Orange County guests who are regulars of his restaurants in Costa Mesa and Laguna Beach. The overlap wasn’t ideal.
The trip had been scheduled two years earlier, so it couldn’t be rescheduled. Santana was also moving from Tustin to Anaheim Hills.
He said he deliberately kept the initial launch low-key, knowing he’d be out of the country.
Once he returned, Santana has been at the restaurant full-time.
He and Labbate are keeping an apartment at The Beaudry for the next six months—to ensure they’re on-site at all times. Santana, however, said he “likes to drive” and has chosen to commute so he can remain close to his family in Orange County.
For now, Vaca Los Angeles is serving dinner Tuesday through Saturday, with lunch service expected to launch later this month.
Even though Santana hasn’t appeared as a guest recently on “Top Chef,” he says the show’s influence hasn’t faded. Fans regularly stop in the new restaurant asking for selfies—requests he’s always happy to accommodate.
“I don’t think that will ever go away,” Santana said of his fame.
