Amar Santana, arguably Orange County’s best-known culinary figure, is using his latest star turn on Bravo’s “Top Chef” series to plot a new restaurant expansion, with destinations outside OC now on the menu.
The use of the priceless TV exposure on the country’s best-known reality show for foodies has already been a winning recipe for Santana, who along with Vaca Group business partner Ahmed Labbate was the Business Journal’s Restaurateur of the Year in 2020.
In Season 13 of Top Chef, Santana, then operating Laguna Beach’s Broadway restaurant, was a finalist. The spotlight from the show meant his just-opened second spot, Costa Mesa’s Vaca, was one of the hardest local restaurants to get a table when it opened across the street from South Coast Plaza.
This year, Santana has been a standout performer for season 20 of Top Chef, titled “Top Chef: World All-Stars,” with a winning episode broadcast in mid-May vaulting him to the final six chefs of the 16 original contestants.
Tune in to Bravo’s Top Chef and its related “Last Chance Kitchen” show to see how far Santana goes in the latest competition, filmed primarily in London.
LA, West Coast
“People ask me if I have fun while I am there,” said Santana, during a media event at Vaca held in late April (see story, page 17).
“I always tell them no, it’s not fun, it’s a competition, you are always stressed, it’s minute by minute, you don’t know what is next. That’s what I love about the show, the surprises are real.”
Santana unveiled a surprise for his luncheon companions: he, Labbate, and their team are opening another Vaca restaurant, this time at the new Beaudry, a luxe residential high-rise located in the heart of Downtown Los Angeles, near 7th and Wilshire.
It’s a return to restaurant expansion for Santana and Labbate, whose last opening, a food hall in South Coast Plaza, had the misfortune of launching just prior to the start of the pandemic, and shuttered near the end of 2021.
His latest Vaca in LA, to be located on the ground floor of the high-rise, is scheduled to open early next year.
More’s in store, but not in OC right now, he said.
“Orange County is saturated with restaurants, so I’ll do LA first, then maybe Las Vegas, San Francisco, San Diego—I want to stay within an hour flight, although the bigger we build the team the further we can go,” Santana said.
