Manresa’s former chef de cuisine, a winner of the prestigious James Beard Rising Star Chef award, has left Silicon Valley for the Southland to launch her own restaurant venture.
Jessica Largey will open Simone in downtown Los Angeles’ Arts District this fall, according to the Los Angeles Times.
The Southern California native, who left the Michelin-starred Manresa in Los Gatos in 2015, has been in residence at Intro Chicago since February 2016, according to the restaurant’s website. The innovative Intro is known for bringing guest chefs in for culinary rotations.
Largey trained at the California School of Culinary Arts in Pasadena after growing up in Fillmore, a small town outside Ventura. She cooked at Providence in Los Angeles and at Heston Blumenthal’s The Fat Duck in England before joining David Kinch’s team.
At Manresa, Mitch Lienhard is the current chef de cuisine — and another prestigious award winner. He bested 19 other global chefs to take the top prize in the S.Pellegrino Young Chef 2016 competition, representing the United States in the finale in Milan with a dish of roasted duck with spiced orange and yam. (“It represents the summation of all of my cooking experiences up to this point,” he said on the awards site about his entry. “There is a component for each stage of my learning from the past 14 years. It is a reflection of me.”)
He’s been with Manresa since mid-2015.
