AMAR SANTANA
PARTNER/CHEF
VACA GROUP
WHY: Arguably OC’s best-known culinary figure, with Laguna Beach’s Broadway
restaurant and Costa Mesa’s Vaca. With business partner Ahmed Labbate, was the Business
Journal’s Restaurateur of the Year in 2020.
IN THE NEWS: Used his star turn on Bravo’s “Top Chef” series, where was runner-up on Season 13, to plot a new restaurant expansion outside OC. Opening another Vaca restaurant in downtown Los Angeles, near 7th and Wilshire.
NOTABLE: Grew up in the Dominican Republic. At age 10, stole recyclables to use the change to buy and cook food for his family. Moved to New York City as a teen and enrolled in the Careers Through Culinary Arts Program for disadvantaged youth. Got a scholarship to the esteemed Culinary Institute of America at Hyde Park, landed an internship with
famed chef Charlie Palmer, who took him under his wing—eventually assigning him to open Palmer’s first Southern California restaurant in Costa Mesa at South Coast Plaza. He never left OC.
QUOTABLE: “People ask me if I have fun while I am there. 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.”
