Chef
Kursten Kizer
- Discipline
- Chef
- Based in
- Los Angeles, California, United States
- Venue
- Craig’s · Restaurant
i. Biography
Coming Up
Restaurant discipline often starts at the dish station, where pace, reset, and order are not optional. Before becoming executive chef of Craig’s restaurant, Kursten Kizer worked as a dishwasher and cook at a mom and pop place in Pennsylvania, entering the trade through the back-end rhythm that keeps service possible: water running, plates stacking, pans moving, and the line needing to be ready again. That kind of early work teaches the restaurant as a system rather than a stage. Dishwashing shows what returns from the dining room; cooking adds heat, repetition, prep pressure, and timing. In Kizer’s case, the foundation was practical: stamina, humility, and the understanding that polish in the room depends on coordination in every station behind it.
The Practice Today
Classic American fare at Craig’s restaurant is built to serve a broad room rather than a narrow doctrine. As executive chef, Kursten Kizer works across upscale comfort food and vegan specialties, keeping the menu accommodating and diverse without treating dietary range as an afterthought. Hospitality at this scale is a production of ease. The food has to read as accessible while still carrying restaurant finish; the service has to feel gracious while the kitchen absorbs the complexity. In Kizer’s work there, classic comfort, plant-based cooking, familiar flavors, and a polished dining-room standard are required to sit on the same menu without showing the seams. A restaurant’s point of view often shows in both the composed dish and the first item placed on the table. Chicken Velasco, demonstrated by Kizer on Hallmark Channel’s Home & Family, carried one of the kitchen’s dishes into a national television format. Its table bread has also drawn its own notice, described by the Los Angeles Times as possibly the best table bread in L.A. Plant-based dessert sits within the same working logic: the menu must welcome more than one way of eating while still feeling like one restaurant. The through-line is adaptability—familiar food that does not stay fixed, and accommodation that does not read as secondary. Ingredient contact remains part of the cook’s register in Kizer’s own line: “I cook everything I catch starting up again.” The statement keeps the work close to appetite, handling, and the direct satisfaction of preparing what the day provides.
Signature
Signature dishes include Chicken Velasco, Craig’s table bread, and Craig’s Vegan. Read together, they define the working range at Craig’s restaurant: a composed classic with public recognition, a table staple noted strongly enough to stand on its own, and a plant-based expression folded into the broader American menu.
The Record
Recognition here is tied to serviceable things that reached beyond the room: Chicken Velasco was demonstrated on Home & Family, and Craig’s table bread received Los Angeles Times praise as possibly the best in the city.
Profile updated July 2026
FAQ
Asked of Kursten
What does Kursten Kizer do now?
Kursten Kizer is executive chef of Craig’s restaurant in West Hollywood.
Where did Kursten Kizer work before?
Earlier in their career, Kursten Kizer worked at mom and pop place.
What is Kursten Kizer known for?
Classic American fare, upscale comfort food, and vegan specialties.
