Kris Tominaga

The Path

Kris Tominaga’s early work moved through a sequence of kitchens and formats that reads less like a leap than a long apprenticeship in service. He began as Sous Chef at Joe's Restaurant in Abbot Kinney Boulevard, Venice, then moved into a chef role at Wolf in Sheep's Clothing pop-up at Capri. The line between those rooms is useful to name: station work, collaboration, improvisation, and the discipline of repeating the night after night work of a kitchen. From 2012, the center of gravity shifted from execution alone to shared authorship when Kris Tominaga served as chef / co-founder at The Hart + The Hunter in Palihotel, Los Angeles. That role carried two jobs at once: cooking with line-level urgency while also helping shape the concept around it. He then became chef at Cadet in Santa Monica until 2016, and chef at Mardi in West Hollywood from 2016, continuing through Los Angeles kitchens in a run that was steady, varied, and more commanding with each move. By 2018, Kris Tominaga had reached the Executive Chef role at Manuela in Arts District, Los Angeles. The progression through those earlier kitchens, counters, and service windows comes together there in a chapter defined by accumulated practice rather than reinvention.

The Work Today

Since 2018, Kris Tominaga has led the kitchen at Manuela in Los Angeles as Executive Chef, giving the career a current address without freezing it in place. The work that comes after years of line service, pop-ups, co-founding, and chef roles carries forward the same movement, but with the steadier pace that usually comes from time inside service. The signature dishes are direct in construction and named ingredients. Barbecued oysters with charred leek butter, breadcrumbs and parmesan is one of the plates most closely tied to Kris Tominaga, and it reads with clear placement rather than ornament. Another is Peads & Barnetts pork chop with yellow peach, turnips, mustard seed oil and honey vinegar, a dish built on contrast and balance. Taken together, the dishes show a cook working with precision, layering, and restraint.

Signature

Kris's signature dishes include cream biscuits with Steen’s butter and Col. Newsom’s aged country ham and barbecued oysters with charred leek butter, breadcrumbs and parmesan.

In Their Words “We were both sous chefs at Joe’s. He was the daytime Sous Chef and I was the nighttime Sous Chef.” “We might have been lying on top of a table.”

Acclaim

Early notice followed the pop-up series that led into The Hart & The Hunter. That attention mattered because it showed a cook whose work could hold up across formats while staying tied to kitchen reality. By the time The Hart & The Hunter was founded, Kris Tominaga had moved from temporary formats into restaurant ownership and leadership. The sequence is clear: each role built on the one before it, widening scope without losing focus. Later markers are the kitchens themselves: Executive Chef at Cadet, chef at Mardi in 2016, and Executive Chef at Manuela in 2018. The geography is notably local, but the range is broad—restaurant line work, pop-up cooking, co-founding, and executive leadership all show up before the Manuela chapter. The recognition attached to Kris Tominaga comes from that accumulation: a career shaped less by spectacle than by steady addition, and by the patient building of a voice that now reads as settled and distinct.

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