Gino Gonzalez

Gino Gonzalez has been on one big culinary journey—studying, traveling, and now running his own restaurant.

Gino Gonzalez has been on one big culinary journey—studying, traveling, and now running his own restaurant.

Gino Gonzalez knew he wanted to cook as soon as he was big enough to stand on a stool so he could reach for the stove. His love for cooking was nurtured early on by everyone around him: His grandmother who baked something wonderful every morning; his Tita Jill (Sandique) who taught him to make his first cake; and of course, his father, chef and restaurateur Gene Gonzalez, who has made the young Gonzalez’s life into “one big culinary journey.”

This journey has taken him to being a line cook during summer vacations back in high school, to taking up the professional culinary arts program at the Center for Asian Culinary Studies (CACS), and to pursuing further studies in the United States (at the Culinary Institute of America in Napa Valley and Hyde Park) and France (at the Le Centre de Formation d’ Alain Ducasse).

When he came home, he went straight to Café Ysabel, the fine dining restaurant his father had established. There, he earned his stripes to become its Executive Chef, while juggling the duties of being the programs director and head instructor for Culinary in CACS. Nowadays, he’s also busy with his own restaurant, Buenisimo at Eastwood.

It’s a dream come true for Gino, who worked with his sister, Giannina, to build his own restaurant from scratch. His culinary signature of creating “something out of the box but still within the lines of being gastronomic and palatable” is apparent in his restaurant’s modern Spanish-Italian menu. So is his love for food and appreciation for a wide variety of cuisines and ingredients you know he acquired from his many culinary adventures with both western and Asian cuisines.

For his Yummy recipes, click here.

Learn from him at the Center for Asian Culinary Studies

 

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