Meet The Chef
Featured on a recent 2020 episode of Beat Bobby Flay on the Food Network, Chef Jojo Vasquez cooks with reverence to culture, seasons and locality. His beautifully composed cuisine sings with keen flavors, simplicity and balance, and serves as a profound reflection of his diverse cultural influences.
As a kid in Chicago, Chef Jojo Vasquez discovered his passion and learned to prepare foods
from his Filipino heritage while helping at his father Leoncio’s catering company. Shortly after
culinary school, he started his career with Chef Steven Chiapetti. Vasquez worked at Chiapetti’s restaurants including Rhapsody at the Chicago Symphony Center. He later moved to Atlanta to work at Fusebox with Chef Troy Thompson. Los Angeles was next, where Thompson brought him into The Ritz-Carlton fold to open Jer-ne restaurant in Marina del Rey, Calif. That eventually led Vasquez to Kapalua, Maui, in 2005, where he helmed the Banyan Tree Restaurant’s fine-dining kitchen into modernist times.
We've been in Maui for five days thus far and both myself and my husband unanimously said this was our favorite meal.
Bridget F., California