Busy chef Antonia Lofaso always makes time for a great meal.
Aruba Tourism Authority
Chef Antonia Lofaso seems to be constantly on the go. When she isn’t appearing on TV in shows like Top Chef, Chopped, Cutthroat Kitchen and Restaurant Startup, she’s running her Los Angeles restaurants Scopa Italian Roots, Black Market Liquor Bar and Dama.
Lofaso recently returned from her first trip to Aruba. There she participated in Autentico, a new food festival that celebrates the island’s culinary scene, which draws influences from Holland, South America and the Caribbean.
We caught up with the L.A.-based chef as she was moving into a new home in Nevada. The chef is cooking up something in Las Vegas and can’t reveal her plans just yet, but she did share more about her trip to Aruba and the dish there that stirred her soul, what she’s making for the holidays and the evolution of fine dining.
Lofaso preps a meal for Aruba’s Autentico food festival.
Aruba Tourism Authority
You were just in Aruba for Autentico. What was that like?
Let me start by saying the entirety of the island of Aruba is so hospitable, so welcoming. I can’t believe that this was their first stab at doing a festival for food, because the whole island has so many great restaurants, so many great chefs, so many innovative chefs.
Operationally, they were so dialed in, they thought about every little aspect of it. They blocked off one of the most popular streets in an area where little kiosks were able to set up so that the restaurants were represented.
I started in the very early days of Wolfgang Puck, who did the American Wine and Food Festival for Meals on Wheels as a charitable donation. It was the very first one in Los Angeles and was done at the Universal backlot. You had these different experiences as you had these kiosks of food. And that’s what this felt like because the kiosks of food and drinks and setups of different areas — they had almost like an Iron Chef competition and one for spirits as well. It was set in between all the amazing restaurants and stores. And so not only were you obviously paying attention to the restaurants and to the different food vendors that were there, but it was set in this little area where you got to see different artwork and stores.
I just love that they really used the surroundings. It wasn’t just an empty lot or a tented area. It was intertwined with the area.
That’s fun. What local food did you enjoy experimenting with?
I did a dinner and used this very specific cucumber to the area. They almost look like big caper berries. They obviously weren’t pickled, tart or anything like that. They were crunchy and had a ton of water content to them. I had spoken to the chefs before I got there, and I was like, “Obviously, I want to bring something with me that I do from my restaurants that represents me, just like most chefs do when they do any kind of festival, whether it’s in their own city, their own country. But I’d love to incorporate local produce or fish.” All local chefs were talking about this very specific cucumber.
I did a crispy shrimp toast. And I always do some kind of pickled vegetable on there, a lot of times a pickled Persian cucumber or pickled radish. So, I used the local cucumbers.
The chef has shared her culinary skills at Paradisus by Meliá resorts.
Paradisus La Perla
Are there any restaurants that stood out during your visit?
Absolutely. I ate at Olivia during the festival, and everyone was talking about it. We [also] went and did a tasting menu the night that I got there at Infini. They did a scallop dish with a carrot beurre blanc and pickled kimchi.
Usually, you marvel at the whole experience of fine dining — the food is always good, and it’s always well executed. But does it always feed your soul, or does it make you want to eat an entire bowl of it, like how comfort food does? This dish touched my soul. All I wanted to do was talk to the chef about it. It was this mixture of classic French cooking of a beurre blanc, but then using carrots of the island and then bringing in this Korean influence, which if you’re keeping up with food anywhere in the world right now, Korean food is having a moment. People have always seen it, but mainstream is seeing it more and more, as it should because it’s one of the greatest foods on the planet. But you’re seeing all those influences in this area in Aruba.
When you travel, do you choose destinations because they’re good foodie cities?
My entire way of vacationing is, “Where are we eating breakfast, lunch and dinner, and where are we going in between just to work it off so we can go to lunch and go to dinner?”
What are some of your favorite foodie cities?
You find gems everywhere. I’ve been in Mississippi and had the greatest food in the world. I’ve been in Paris, all over Italy, Africa, and you’re always able to find the local spot that you need to eat in, the spot that everyone’s raving about that maybe some new chef is coming in and wants to show his excitement and influence from something else. It is like that in every state, every country, every city I have visited. So, wherever I visit, I always seek out all the places — the places I’m eating in my shorts and flip-flops and the places that I’m getting dressed up to enjoy top-to-bottom eating.
Thanksgiving and the holidays are coming up. Do you have any special dishes that you make to celebrate?
For me, the Christmas holiday is the Feast of Seven Fishes. I’m an American Italian, so I figure out every year how to put seven to 10 fish somehow together in something that you can entertain with so that I can actually enjoy myself and I’m not just cooking all night long.
And Thanksgiving — I’m a traditionalist. I’m like turkey all day long with gravy, cranberry sauce, stuffing and anything that I can put gravy on and gravy on and gravy on, like mashed potatoes, macaroni and cheese, the classics.
Every once in a while, back when I first started cooking, I was like, “Maybe we’ll do a duck.” Then I’m just like, “No, I want turkey and gravy, and I want all the gravy on top of all the things. And I wanted to just mash together.”
Well, your limited-edition menu across Paradisus by Meliá resorts in Mexico and the Dominican Republic wraps up in October. What was it like working on that?
It was really lovely to be able to showcase a lot of food that I’m super proud of in the States in a lot of these different areas. I got to visit Cancun and spend a lot of time with all of the chefs at Paradisus, and it was such an incredible experience. They have a great culinary program there.
I got to spend some time in the Dominican Republic and do their big curated [Epicure] dinner that they do every single year. I just had a wonderful time. They were so excited to work with me, which I was super excited about because you love when chefs welcome you into their kitchen and want to learn and be a part of like what it is that you do, or what I’ve been doing for the last 17 years in the States.
I picked my favorites and not just something to showcase — I took the local chefs’ suggestions, like the fish that they have in the area, and then just turned it into a lot of the dishes that I would do in the States. But then, of course, I took my rice ball — because the rice ball has to be brought everywhere I go — and the Sicilian ice cream sandwich. All the things that are staples at Scopa I brought out there and then had one dish, which was a fra diavolo sauce, a very spicy tomato broth with roasted fennel, doing that with the local fish.
Lofaso loves that the term “fine dining” is being redefined.
Aruba Tourism Authority
You mentioned before Korean food and how that’s become more mainstream. What are some of the other big culinary trends that you’re seeing?
What I love so much is that the dining landscape has broadened and has changed in a way that people are really celebrating diverse food. It’s given chefs permission — not that they didn’t have it before, but now because they’ve got guests flooding their restaurants — to take what they know about Korean, Mexican or Israeli food.
You’ve seen all of them really have a moment in the last five years — you look at Bavel in Los Angeles and what Ori [Menashe] did over there with incredible Israeli food, like hummus and tabouli. And all of a sudden, it feels as if you’re getting dressed up and you’re having cocktails.
And so really celebrating that same thing with Korean food. I was just at Attaboy in New York City and seeing not just the diversity of it, but sort of the progressiveness of it because they’re using a lot of French techniques and a lot of different flavors of different areas and turning it into something really special and fine dining in a very easy way. You don’t have to get all dressed up for it. You just sit and relax and eat.
Basically, my point is a lot of times the conversation, unfortunately, in the United States only has been that this type of food — Mexican food, Israeli food — isn’t meant for you to go out and have cocktails and get all dressed up and have a date night. Now we’re not limiting what we believe fine dining and progressive dining are. All these great restaurants that are packed every night, where people are spending money and having their date nights and getting engaged in, are all different styles and diversity of food.
Chefs have been screaming about this forever, but unfortunately for a very long time, only certain areas were pumped up. Then others were just like, “Oh, tacos aren’t meant for that.” You can have a 12-course taco tasting at Pujol in Mexico City, but the rest of the country just didn’t pay attention to or didn’t know. I mean, the most delicious hummus you’ve ever had is in an incredible restaurant in downtown Los Angeles or you can have an amazing fusion of Korean and progressive Korean at Attaboy in New York. When you see that, it excites you about food. It excites me about food.
It’s all the food that’s been overlooked for a very long time, so I’m happy to see all of it get its moment in the stars. Hopefully, it stays there.
What are you working on next?
2025 is going to be a great year. It’s going to be a big year. I’ve got great stuff coming on television. I was a host on Worst Cooks in America this year. They haven’t announced it yet, but it’s already filmed and it’s going to come out January. And then Tournament of Champions will be out again.
And of course, I’ve got some stuff working in Las Vegas. I’ve got stuff working in Los Angeles. I’ve got stuff working in Irvine. I’m all over the place.
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Publish date : 2024-10-31 01:35:00
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