Five Santa Monica chefs you need to know

Walk into Rustic Canyon on Wilshire Boulevard in Santa Monica any evening between 5 and 6:30 p.m., and you'll find chef Elijah DeLeon plating birria de res the way his Jalisco-born grandmother taught him. Meanwhile, at Seline, on Main Street, chef Dave Beran is fortifying a dish with eucalyptus because "when it rains, Topanga Canyon smells like eucalyptus."

On Montana Avenue, the line at Bread Head is full of locals ordering their second turkey pesto focaccia of the week. And at Xuntos, a Spanish tapas restaurant housed in a building as old as Route 66 itself, near the Promenade, chef Sandra Cordero is serving percebes — goose barnacles — to a dining room that hasn't stopped filling since the Palisades Fires hit.

A new generation of Santa Monica chefs have gravitated to the neighborhood because, they say, it offers something often rare today — community. Meanwhile, their top-tier skills are helping turn it into one of the city's diing destinations.

Alex Williams/Jordan Snyder, Bread Head

Alex Williams and Jordan Snyder opened Bread Head in Santa Monica in 2024 after four years of pop-ups perfecting their "Frankenstein focaccia."

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Will Blunt

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Courtesy Bread Head

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Bread Head's mozzarella sandwich on their signature "Frankenstein focaccia"

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Gab Chabrán

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LAist

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In 2019, Alex Williams and Jordan Snyder earned a Michelin star together at Trois Mec, the 24-seat tasting-menu spot in Hollywood. But for years, the duo had been dreaming of opening a sandwich shop together, viewing fine dining as a precarious enterprise. "People run down the list of restaurants,” says Williams. “You typically try that place out, and maybe you come back once more." Plus, with a newborn at home, the demanding hours meant he was "going down a path of not being around."

In 2020, after Trois Mec closed during the pandemic, they pivoted to pop-ups, crafting what Williams calls their "Frankenstein focaccia" — inspired by an Italian kebab shop sandwich he'd become obsessed with during a trip to Italy. What mattered most was "the balance of bread to filling ratio" and achieving a "nice crispy texture... like the underside of Pizza Hut pizza... that lacy kind of buttery crust." The recipe, tweaked through countless batches at his house during the pandemic, would become the foundation for every sandwich at Bread Head.

After four years of pop-ups, they found a spot on Montana Avenue. "Once I saw Montana, it just clicked," Williams says. "People spend all day down here between Pilates, nails, salon, coffee, and lunch." Opening their first brick-and-mortar in 2024, they quickly expanded to Manhattan Beach and Westwood over the next 15 months. But it was the regulars who surprised him most. "Some locals come in twice a week, and you get to know these guys... how was your trip to Italy? How are the kids?" Williams says. "That's really special." Turkey pesto, his least favorite sandwich, became their top seller. "You can't always cook for yourself," he laughs.

Chef Dave Beran, Pasjoli and Seline

Chef Dave Beran of Pasjoli and Seline in Santa Monica.

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John Troxell

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A dish from Seline's autumn menu, where Chef Dave Beran says "seasonality meets surrealism."

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Courtesy Seline

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When you ask Chef Dave Beran to share his personal story, it resembles something like a plot line from The Bear. After spending 10 years with Chicago's Alinea group — a three-Michelin-star destination for modernist cuisine — Beran moved to Los Angeles in 2016, part of a wave of chefs making similar moves. "L.A. felt very much like something sparked... like this magic, like I felt in Chicago in the early 2000s," he says. But it wasn't downtown that called to him. After a lease in the Arts District fell through, Beran found himself cycling around Santa Monica, slowly falling in love with Main Street. "One of the few streets that really felt like the neighborhoods I knew," he says. "I wanted to become part of a community, not just someone living there."

In 2019, he opened Pasjoli with a simple vision: a neighborhood bistro serving refined French cuisine through the lens of California produce. Five months later, the pandemic hit. Like other restaurants, Pasjoli was on the verge of closing. "It felt like there was a community here that wanted us to survive," Beran says. "And we did."

After a successful five years, in 2024, Beran hit reset. While sitting at the bar with his 3 year-old-daughter, he had a moment of clarity. He realized the restaurant had drifted into being "a little more fine dining and a little less approachable," he says. "It had become the place I don't wanna go to all the time anymore."

He closed for three weeks to reconfigure, returning with a menu that Pasjoili. A few months later, he opened a second restaurant, Seline, also on Main Street. It was the opposite of Pasjoli — a 16 to 22 course journey ($295 per person) that Beran describes as "where seasonality meets surrealism," harking back to his modernist Alinea days. The Autumn menu alone tells the story: leek with eucalyptus and banana, Dungeness crab with smoked pork, coffee paired with caviar. "The last thing I wanted was a restaurant that you could pick up and put anywhere," Beran says. "I felt it was very important to be representative of where we are — but not in a predictable way. For me, it was finding my own storyline through my life that related to what exists here now." At Seline, Santa Monica isn't just an address — it's an ingredient.

Beran believes the neighborhood is now destined for gastronomic greatness. "We're two more restaurants away from this being one of the best dining destinations in the city," he says. For Beran, that tipping point isn't a question of if — it's when.

Chef Sandra Cordero, Xuntos

Chef Sandra Cordero brings the flavors of her childhood summers in Galicia to Xuntos in Santa Monica.

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Courtesy Xuntos

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Xuntos' menu features Galician specialties including pescaíto frito, empanadas gallega and fresh seafood.

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Courtesy Xuntos

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Chef Sandra Cordero spent her youth in Amsterdam, but it was summers in Galicia with her Spanish father that shaped her. For six to eight weeks each year, she'd find herself in a tiny village of 500 people, walking cows to fields and absorbing a food culture that stuck. "Childhood memories of Coruña... a seaside town close to the beach, going from one place to another, eating tapas," she recalls. "I love eating for six hours."

After a decade at Gasolina Café in Woodland Hills, Cordero, who moved to New York in 2001 before coming to L.A., had long wanted to serve the food she grew up with. Santa Monica called for two reasons: beach culture ("tapas close to the beach... that was the feeling I wanted") and the renowned Wednesday farmers market ("reminds me of home, it's my people, it's my family.") She opened Xuntos, (pronounced shoon-toess), , which opened just a few blocks from the Promenade, before Gasolina closed in early 2025, marking Cordero's full transition from the San Fernando Valley to the Westside.

The menu philosophy mirrors that of Galician fish shops: "just a little plancha and steamer... really simple, getting the best ingredients... not so fussy." True to that spirit, the menu features percebes — goose barnacles flown in from Alaska — alongside pescaíto frito, empanadas gallega and fresh shell beans from the farmers market for fabada, a hearty Spanish stew from the Asturias region made with white beans, chorizo, morcilla and pork.

Xuntos is housed in a 1926 building — turning 100 this year — and Cordero explains that the vibe is both modern and nostalgic. "I think it's my European looking for some history and oldness," she says. "It has a soul, it has energy." The name Xuntos — which means "together" in Galician — was born out of a post-pandemic desire to create a space for connection. "We're gonna bring back the roaring twenties," Cordero says with a laugh. "Abundance and celebrating... eat all night, drink all night... put those phones away and just engage."

But 2025 tested that vision. Strikes, fires and the closure of Pacific Coast Highway for four months hit the neighborhood hard. Cordero transformed Xuntos into a community hub, feeding up to 400 evacuees daily during the Palisades Fire. The neighborhood noticed. "We really have a lot of neighbors who keep coming back," she says. Cordero makes annual trips to Spain, drawing inspiration from restaurants such as Culler de Pau, the two-Michelin-star restaurant in Galicia known for its zero-mile philosophy and dishes that evoke the local landscape and sea. That sensibility — simple, local, deeply rooted — shows up on the Xuntos menu. Her vision remains simple: "We really want to be the neighborhood place."

Chef Elijah DeLeon, Rustic Canyon

At Rustic Canyon, Executive Chef Elijah DeLeon blends South Bay roots with Jalisco traditions and California's seasonal abundance.

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Courtesy Rustic Canyon

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Alex Scott

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Birria de res quesadillas from Chef Elijah DeLeon at Rustic Canyon, based on a recipe passed down from his Jalisco-born grandmother.

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Mike Hos

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Courtesy Rustic Canyon

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Elijah DeLeon grew up in Torrance, Carson and Gardena — an area he still calls "my favorite part of Los Angeles... it does not feel L.A." He began cooking at 18 and quickly became obsessed with the landmark cookbook On Vegetables, by Jeremy Fox, owner of Rustic Canyon in Santa Monica. "That's my favorite cookbook," DeLeon says. "I was obsessed with his Instagram." He applied to its sister restaurant, Birdie G's, as a cook right before pandemic restrictions lifted, working his way up to junior sous chef and sous chef before joining Rustic Canyon six years ago. He's now the restaurant's executive chef, after Fox stepped down last year.

DeLeon draws deeply from his roots. The son of a mother from Jalisco and a Filipino father, he spoke Spanish at home. "I grew up very Mexican," he says. "My grandma would stay with us four or five months of the year... the music my mom would play, the traditions." Those traditions, along with years spent at the Torrance Farmers Market, would come to shape everything he puts on the plate.

That influence found its fullest expression in “Rustic Cantina,” a weekly Thursday event that began in September, where the entire menu became Mexican-inspired. The concept proved so popular that it's become the restaurant's daily happy-hour menu available every evening from 5 p.m. to 6:30 p.m. in the bar and lounge, and roughly 50 percent of the regular menu is now made up of Mexican dishes. The Japanese sweet potato tamal has become a topseller, while the birria de res with huitlacoche, an earthy, smoky delicacy with a mushroom-like flavor that was eaten by the Aztecs, holds a special place.

"My grandma, that's one of the first dishes she showed me how to make," he says. Skirt steak with huitlacoche and fried sunchoke chips adds what he describes as "super umami, savory" depth, while chocoflan rounds it out — "the dessert I would love having on my birthday."

With cumbias blasting and birria now flowing every evening, Rustic Cantina has become proof that the best restaurants aren't just about the food — they're about the stories behind it.

Jyan Isaac Horwitz, Jyan Isaac Bread

At 25, Jyan Isaac Horwitz may be LA's youngest artisan baker — and one of its most prolific.

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Nick Smeshko

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Courtesy Jyan Isaac Bread

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Jyan Isaac Horwitz's breads include porridge loaf, marble rye and the city sourdough — "just flour, water and salt".

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Courtesy Jyan Isaac Bread

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One of the youngest bakers in Los Angeles might just be the most prolific as well. At 25, Jyan Isaac Horwitz has taken the city by storm with his Westside bakery churning out deliciously whole-grain sourdough loaves.

Born and raised in Venice, Horwitz started baking in middle school — his mother is a pastry chef. After earning his GED, he got a job at Gjusta Bakery in Venice, the acclaimed artisanal bakery known for its house-made sourdough and ingredient-driven approach. It's where he got serious about the craft. "I owe a lot of it to my time at Gjusta," Horwitz says. "I learned a lot and I met a lot of people and had some mentorships."

When the pandemic hit in March 2020, Horwitz took a volunteer furlough from Gjusta. Plans to work at a bakery in Germany fell through, so he started baking sourdough loaves at home and selling them to neighbors. Word spread quickly, and Horwitz launched what he calls a "bread hustle" — baking 50 loaves a day and delivering them across the city with help from his family. His father had a lease on a shuttered pizza restaurant on Ocean Park Boulevard, so Horwitz started using that kitchen. Eventually, he scaled to 100 loaves a day, baking 20 at a time over five hours.

When the Los Angeles Times profiled him in July 2020, demand exploded. Horwitz had a months-long waitlist and lines down the street. That's when they invested in a proper bread oven and turned it into a real business. The growth has been gradual since then, transforming into what Horwitz calls "a neighborhood place with regulars."

Today, the menu at Jyan Isaac Bread spans bagels, baguettes, ciabatta, olive fougasse and bagel sandwiches with house-made gravlax. But Horwitz's heart belongs to the hearth loaves: the porridge loaf, made with a Three Sisters grain mix of rye, oat and barley flakes cooked into porridge with a toasted wheat germ crust; the marble rye with caraway seeds, "perfect for pastrami sandwiches", and the German-style crackle rye. Then there's the city sourdough — the purest expression of his philosophy. "It's so simple... just flour, water and salt," Horwitz says. "Through the process of fermentation, they turn into something that's much more complex." That flour — milled fresh in Skagit Valley, Washington, with all its nutrients intact — makes all the difference. "The flour makes everything for me because since it's so fresh, they keep all of the nutrients inside that get stripped for shelf life," he says. "I want to make a product that people seek out... that you can't just get at the grocery store."

At 25, he's likely the youngest baker in LA's artisan bread scene, constantly learning from other bakers while building his own legacy. The most rewarding part? "Making a product that I feel proud of... something I want more people to experience." That mission is expanding: a Silver Lake location is set to open in the coming months. "L.A. is so massive," Horwitz says. "So many different communities and neighborhoods that want and love good bread. I'm trying to fulfill some more of that need."