Val Cantu

Coming Up

Training at University of Texas at Austin (2006) gave Val Cantu a starting point, but the craft sharpened in restaurants where repetition, pace, and standards compress experience quickly. He worked at Uchi in Austin, Texas, then staged at Benu in San Francisco, California, Saison in San Francisco, taking in the rigor, and tempo of kitchens that helped define contemporary dining. As sous chef at Sons & Daughters in San Francisco, California, he took on the daily demands of leadership and consistency, work that tends to reveal how a kitchen actually holds together. He later ran a series of Mexican pop-up restaurants called Californios, where the cooking could be tested in public and allowed to settle into a clear point of view. Today, Val is head chef and co-owner of Californios (since 2015), where that point of view has become the restaurant’s identity.

Where They Are Now

At Californios in San Francisco, the role is both creative and operational: chef and owner means the same hand is responsible for the menu, the room, and the standard. The cooking remains modern Mexican cuisine, still tied to a market-driven seasonality through a Mexican lens. In practice, that produces food that follows the season rather than forcing against it, turning what is available into plates that are composed, contemporary, and exact.

Signature

Val's signature dishes include Tres Frijoles and Alfonsino Taco. Even in name, they point to a concise approach: focused dishes, little waste in the idea, and enough structural clarity to carry flavor, texture, and finish without overbuilding.

In Their Words “Beyond that, the core of our philosophy is designing dishes that maximize deliciousness and pleasure.” “At Californios, our style of cooking is market focused, seasonal cuisine through a Mexican lens.”