Aitor Zabala

The Path

Technical formation set the base. At Hoffman School of Gastronomy, Aitor Zabala trained in a setting where method came before style. From 2006–2009, the Spanish chapter moved through Akelarre in Spain, Arzak in Spain, and Alkimia in Spain—kitchens connected to a period when Spanish gastronomy was being worked as craft and as conceptual practice. In the same span, the creative team collaborator role at El Bulli in Spain put Zabala in direct contact with a laboratory model of experimentation. The Spanish period established the operating vocabulary: control, surprise, and memory handled through exact technique. Creative direction at José Andrés's restaurant group later carried that discipline into the United States, bringing a Spanish sensibility into an American context without treating it as replica or nostalgia. The Somni format first ran from 2018–2020, when Aitor Zabala was co-founder at Somni in SLS Beverly Hills hotel, Beverly Hills. The restaurant concentrated the training, collaborative practice, and creative method into a tasting-menu room. Since 2024, ownership of Somni has continued that work in West Hollywood as refinement rather than restart.

The Work Today

Modernist tasting-menu structure is the working frame at Somni in West Hollywood, where Aitor Zabala is chef and owner. Spanish ingredients and California produce are handled through play, sequence, and precision, with texture, flavor, and memory managed across the meal. Technique is used to clarify each course, not to ornament it. Spanish memory works here as usable material, not archive. At Somni, Aitor Zabala folds that material into the freshness, seasonality, and brightness of California produce, keeping the cuisine rooted without making it literal. The modernist method allows familiar references to change form, placing ingredients, flavor, and pacing inside the tasting-menu rhythm. The stated philosophy is direct: the restaurant creates food from memories of the past and present so guests can create new memories of their own. In practice, that gives the work its line: Spanish training, Catalan heritage, the California landscape, and the immediate conditions of the dining room held in one sequence.

In Their Words “I never realized how profound creativity could be until I encountered "El Bulli: El Sabor del Mediterráneo" in 1997. El Bulli and Ferran Adrià ignited a dream within me, showing that cooking could be an art form.”

Acclaim

Trade recognition for the work has been explicit: Three Michelin stars for Somni (2025), Eighth best chef in the world (2020), and Two Michelin stars for Somni. The awards track a practice built on discipline, imagination, and a personal form of modern gastronomy.