When chef Amar Santana, a finalist on Bravo’s “Top Chef,” opened Vaca DTLA late last year, the debut wasn’t an instant hit.
Tucked at the ground level of a residential high-rise in downtown Los Angeles, the second outpost of Santana’s wildly popular Costa Mesa restaurant wasn’t exactly packed—despite the chef’s fame.
One day, he counted just 10 diners.
“It was very scary. Costa Mesa is doing 300 covers. Why is it not happening in LA?” Santana told the Business Journal during a recent interview at the LA restaurant. “How can we get people in here?”
Santana didn’t let the slow start rattle him for long. That’s not his style. Throughout his career—from studying culinary arts as a New York City teen to co-founding his namesake restaurant in Laguna Beach—he has built a reputation for adapting to whatever challenge comes his way.
In the case of Vaca DTLA, he did what most restaurants do to generate buzz these days: he took to social media.
A surge of TikTok and Instagram videos soon followed, including one of Santana demonstrating a technique for cooking a perfect medium-rare porterhouse steak—without blood pooling on the plate.
The nearly two-minute clip went viral, along with others showcasing Vaca’s tapas, paellas and dry-aged steaks.
“We have people coming to the restaurant that watch videos on TikTok and Instagram,” Santana said. “They come to the restaurant and tell us we’re famous on TikTok. One of the influencer’s posts got over 2.4 million views, and it’s still going.
“It’s crazy, right?”
Not so crazy if you know Santana.
Resilience has defined the Dominican Republic-born chef’s journey—from immigrant teenager to nationally recognized restaurateur. It’s also why the Business Journal is naming Santana, OC’s best-known chef, its 2026 Chef of the Year.
Dominican Republic to New York to OC
Santana was born in the Dominican Republic and immigrated to the United States at age 13. His father told him he was in the land of opportunity—take advantage.
While living in New York, he was exposed to the culinary world in high school and then received a scholarship to the prestigious Culinary Institute of America, the renowned school that trained the late Anthony Bourdain, Chipotle founder Steve Ells, and Kogi food truck founder Roy Choi, who lived in OC as a teen.
After graduation, Santana studied and worked under chef Charlie Palmer for 10 years, including a stint at Palmer’s flagship Aureole restaurant in New York City. The celebrity chef later tapped Santana, then 26, to launch his first restaurant in Orange County—Charlie Palmer at Bloomingdale’s in South Coast Plaza.
After leaving Charlie Palmer, Santana—along with his business partner Ahmed Labbate—opened Broadway by Amar Santana in 2011 in Laguna Beach, followed by Vaca in Costa Mesa in 2015, and Vaca DTLA in 2025.
Hungry Chef’ Forced to Pivot in Laguna Beach
Thanks to an investor who liked what Santana did with the menu at Charlie Palmer’s, Santana opened Broadway in the space formerly occupied by Five Feet.
“I was 28, a very young chef. And I was hungry,” recalled Santana. “This was my first restaurant. I was a new kid in town that just left Charlie Palmer, so I kind of had that momentum going to Broadway.”
But it was very challenging at the beginning, because Santana created this “huge” menu featuring 12 small plates, five appetizers and five main courses. On top of that, he offered a 10-course tasting menu. The small plate concept was not profitable because a table of six people would order 10 small plates but skip the main $40 entrees.
“I was doing like 300 covers every night with small plates coming out of everywhere,” he said. “We were doing the impossible. And then I’m looking at the sales and realized this is not working.”
Santana quickly shifted course, simplifying the menu to a few appetizers and five entrees. He kept the tasting menu but reduced it to six dishes.
“We went with that for a while until we put it on the map,” he said.
Today, Broadway remains one of the most popular fine dining restaurants in downtown Laguna Beach.
Vaca: Bringing Spain to OC
After a few years, Santana and Labbate began discussing opening a second restaurant. They agreed they both liked steaks and French food, so they considered launching a French bistro along the lines of Balthazar in New York.
Then they hit upon small plates like tapas—real tapas.
“Until then, I had been to Spanish restaurants, but I had never been to Spain,” said Santana, who lives with his family in Anaheim Hills. “I never experienced the tapas experience.”
Once he and Labbate decided to open a restaurant serving tapas and steakhouse under the same roof, it was time for a road trip.
“We decided to go to Spain,” he said. “We went to all the mom-and-pop restaurants. We didn’t need to go to any fancy place. We went to the markets. We just wanted traditional Spanish food. I just want to see what is it about tapas?”
Santana recalled dining on grilled calamari with a little olive oil and sea salt that, in his words, “blew my mind away.”
Why can’t we do this back home, he wondered.
After returning to Orange County, Santana realized that, to make an impact and be Spanish, his restaurant needed a large variety of choices.
“We had something like 26 things on the menu. We have taken it down a little bit, but that’s how this concept came about. I tell people we do it as close to Spain as we can.”
To maintain authenticity, nearly everything is imported from Spain—olive oil, salt and wine.
“We try to bring as much of Spanish flavors and products as we can,” he said. “Obviously, we pay higher dollars, especially nowadays, but it’s the authenticity of this place. I try to do my best to kind of recreate those simple dishes from Spain using American ingredients. You’re not going to Spain; I’m bringing it to you here.”
A Life-Changing ‘Top Chef’ Run
Vaca was busy from day one because the same week it opened, Santana was competing on “Top Chef,” Season 13.
“I think the combination of that and opening a new restaurant already having Broadway, it was kind of like a chain reaction to success in this place. People were coming three, four or five months later and they couldn’t get a reservation. And I said wow; this is good for business. I was glad to be able to put Orange County on the map for real, traditional Spanish food.”
Santana said a show recruiter discovered him while he was cooking at Broadway in Laguna.
“I had the Mohawk happening. I got the smile. I got my personality. I’m running the show. I’m taking shots with people. I’m running Broadway the way it’s run.”
Santana was contacted by “Top Chef” and started filling out paperwork. One of the requirements is to meet with a psychiatrist and answer multiple-choice questions.
“They want to make sure that you are good at being secluded from the world and sleeping in the same room with somebody else. So, I filled out all the paperwork. I did everything. I never heard back.”
Santana decided to go on vacation in Morocco, and of course, that’s when “Top Chef” called. The showrunners wanted to interview in person but settled for a video call.
He clearly made an impression, as he eventually got the call for Season 13, a road-trip format in which contestants competed across several California cities.
“I left for two and a half months,” said Santana. “You’re away from the world. No phone, no contact with the outside world, nothing. I was able to call work once.”
Santana survived long enough to take second place that season. Some say the fan favorite should have won.
Though he didn’t take the top prize, his screen time made him famous.
Still, competing was challenging.
“After that I said I would never compete again. This is not for me. I did it once. Thank you very much. I was a finalist.”
But then, during COVID-19, he was invited to serve as a judge on “Top Chef: Portland.”
“We shot eight episodes. It was a great experience. I love judging. I got to know the judges. I couldn’t even talk to them when I was competing, so I really enjoyed that.”
Then Santana talked himself into competing in a special international all-star version of “Top Chef” in 2023. Off he went to France and London for two months. He won fan favorite for that series, even though he did not win the competition.
COVID Challenges
In 2020, Santana and Labbate were named the Business Journal’s Restaurateurs of the Year for their work opening The Hall Global Eatery, a multi-concept food hall at South Coast Plaza.
Santana and Labbate did not have much time to celebrate the recognition, which came days before restaurants were forced to shut down due to the pandemic.
Their new restaurants at the mall did not survive.
The sting of the closure didn’t stop the partners from expanding.
Broadway is going strong, and Vaca is ripe for growth.
“We want to do more Vacas,” Santana said. “I think the fact that we’re able to open a second location with the same menu, and now we are running it going back and forth, I think the future is more Vacas.
It’s hard to duplicate Broadway when you have your name in the window, and every time people go there, they expect to see you there. I like the idea of eventually seeing more Vacas, because I think this concept can definitely work anywhere.”
