Patch Picks: Top Five Chefs

1. Ashley Hosmer is a local legend, skyrocketing to fame when she took over as Executive Chef at the local favorite Shadowbrook restaurant last year. At only 25 years of age, Hosmer has proven her competence in a world-famous kitchen that often serves special occasion events as well as breakfast, lunch and dinner.

Hosmer is also a local, graduating from Harbor High School and then the completing Le Cordon Bleu program at the California Culinary Academy in San Francisco.

She worked at the St. Regis Hotel in Princeville before coming back home to work for several years as a sous chef at the Shadowbrook. On her days off, she likes to run with her dog, Kona.  

2. Hector X. Quiroz is a chef and professor at the Cabrillo College’s prestigious Culinary Arts and Hospitality Management program. He is also a favorite of students, according to Rate my Professor and the word on the street, which both praise him for the patience and care he has for all of his students.

He co-teaches the lunch program at Cabrillo’s Senson House restaurant, where you can go taste what the culinary students are cooking.

“We teach them how to work every aspect of a restaurant, one day they might be a manager, another a dishwasher, waiter, entree cook,” said Quiroz.

He also works as a chef for Five Star Catering during their busy wedding season, and runs his own business, Q’s Catering, which is advertised by word of mouth only. He is passionate about barbecuing and makes some pretty amazing Mexican food. He also loves to bake bread.

3. Lenny Calandrino is a self-taught chef who loves to organize dinner parties for his friends. You can currently find him cooking at the Backstage Lounge, which is open any night the Rio Theatre is having a show. Calandrino has spent a lot of time in Italy and France, where it is clear he paid great attention to the local food.

He loves to make rustic pizzas from scratch, which he suggests tearing with your hands as they do in Italy. He has also been recently experimenting with Thomas Jefferson’s recipe for mac & cheese, mouth-watering sliders and desserts. He hopes to publish a cookbook soon.

4. Jozseph Schultz of India Joze is another famous name you will hear around town, founding his first India Joze Restaurant back in 1972, and reopening it last year on Front Street in Santa Cruz. Joze is a chef who has learned a lot through his travels, which have taken him through Italy, Austria, France, Java, Bali, Thailand and India.

He has taught at the Cabrillo College Culinary Arts program and also gives demonstrations and classes at his restaurant. Check out his website (above) to view his calendar of events and his menu.

5. Lucio Fanni, the chef at Caffe Lucio, is famous not only for his authentic Italian cuisine, but also for his spastic outbursts (usually of enthusiasm). Before he opened Caffe Lucio at Soquel and Ocean St in Santa Cruz, Fanni ran the small hole-in-the-wall restaurant Al Dente, in Seabright, where a kitchen window put him on stage every night.

His menu includes an extensive list of pasta dishes and some of the most Italian-tasting pizza in town. If you haven’t already encountered the culinary wrath and lively entertainment of Lucio, you should definitely go see what all of the fuss is all about.