Ryan Garlitos

Coming Up

Training at University of California, Irvine gave Ryan Garlitos a formal base before restaurant work sharpened the line. At Taco Maria, where he served as sous chef, the pace and discipline of the kitchen became part of his method. He later moved into the chef-owner role at Irenia in Santa Ana, then into his current posts as executive chef of Le Hut Dinette (since 2025) and chef of Hitchen's Barn, carrying the same culinary vocabulary across different rooms.

Where They Are Now

Santa Ana is still the center of the work, even as the room has changed. Irenia ran there from 2016 to 2019; the current chapter carries the same city but a different frame, with Ryan Garlitos leading from a new set of responsibilities. The continuity matters: the titles have shifted, but the practice remains connected to the kitchen history that came before. Filipino cooking is the specialty attached to his name, and it is anchored in a domestic technique rather than an abstract concept. Ryan Garlitos points to his grandmother Irenia making longanisa by hand in Yorba Linda. That kind of repetition — sausage shaped in a backyard kitchen, from memory and touch — is the sort of instruction that tends to stay in the body long after the meal is gone.

Signature

Filipino cooking is the clearest line through Ryan Garlitos’s work. It links the kitchens, the titles, and the stages of his career without needing to change shape to fit each one. In a chef-owner role or an executive chef post, the focus stays on a cuisine carried through memory, technique, and repetition.

In Their Words “Carlos is a big part of my lineage. I learned a lot.” “Watching my grandma Irenia make longanisa (Filipino sausage) by hand in the backyard of our Yorba Linda home.”

Honors

Ryan Garlitos has received Orange County Register — Best New Chef (2016). No awards are cited for Ryan Garlitos.