Chef Aitor Zabala: The Five-Year Road Back to Three Michelin Stars

In today’s episode, we sit down with Chef Aitor Zabala, chef and owner of three-Michelin-starred Somni in West Hollywood and the first Spanish chef to earn three Michelin stars outside of Spain.

Aitor shares the remarkable journey that took him from discovering cooking at 17 in a military kitchen to working at some of Spain’s most influential restaurants, including Akelarre and elBulli, before a chance meeting with José Andrés brought him to the United States. He reflects on choosing learning over titles, the mentors who shaped his approach to food, and the balance between creativity, technique, and exceptional ingredients. Aitor also opens up about the nearly five-year journey to rebuild Somni after its 2020 closure, the setbacks that tested him along the way, and why reaching the highest levels still means looking for ways to get better.

This conversation is about staying curious, learning from every experience, and keeping the hunger to grow no matter how much you achieve.

Transcript

TRANSCRIPT

Kirk Bachmann: Hello, everyone. My name is Kirk Bachmann, and welcome back to the Ultimate Dish. I am especially excited and a little bit nervous about today’s guest because we are sitting down with a chef, a human, an incredible person who just made history. Please welcome the chef and owner of Somni in West Hollywood, Chef Aitor Zabala. Aitor’s story begins in Barcelona, in a family steeped in food and Basque tradition. His mother and grandmother ran traditional restaurants, and his father hosted a popular radio show devoted to gastronomy. He found his calling in an unlikely place. At 17, doing his mandatory military service, he was assigned to kitchen duty, cooking for 1,500 people a day, and watching those chefs work, something clicked. From there, he talked his way into an unpaid position at the three Michelin star Akelarre and he went on to cook at some of Spain’s most storied kitchens — Àbac, Alkimia — and then finally, Ferran Adrià’s legendary elBulli at the very height of its influence. It was at elBulli that a chance encounter with José Andrés changed everything. Andrés invited him to the United States, where Aitor spent a decade as the creative director for ThinkFoodGroup, helping shape restaurants like The Bazaar and minibar. In 2018, he opened his first Somni, which means dream in Catalan, a tiny chef’s counter tucked inside The Bazaar. It earned two Michelin stars before the pandemic forced it to close in 2020. What followed was a long, winding road — nearly five years of searching for a space, navigating delays, construction, and setbacks. All the while, he kept cooking and refining with his team. Somni finally reopened independently in late 2024 in West Hollywood, and then in June of 2025, just seven months later, Somni was awarded three Michelin stars, making Aitor the first Spanish chef ever to earn three stars outside of Spain. Somni, one of the very first three-star restaurants in all of Los Angeles. And as he put it himself, he’s a kid from the Arc de Triomf who ended up in Los Angeles serving food to Tom Hanks. Hi, Aitor, welcome to the Ultimate Dish. I’m exhausted. What an amazing introduction. How are you?

Aitor Zabala: I’m really great and really surprised when everyone explained in my history that beautifulness, because I never think about that. So thank you for do that.

Kirk Bachmann: No, absolutely. I love the tradition. I love the acknowledgement of your family. Before we go any further, I would be remiss if I didn’t congratulate you on the incredible World Cup victory just a few weeks ago in Spain. And as I understand, you had a chance to be at the final.

Aitor Zabala: Yeah, was a great moment too. I say it was nice to be seeing my country — within the country which is my home now — and it was so much a beautiful and excitement. Obviously, because we win. I don’t know, if we lost, it’ll be the same. I mean, we lost, just being there, just being there, being there and enjoy it. And it was nice because I was in the middle of all the Argentinian fans, so I was — my friend and I all in the middle in the big fan base of Argentina. So it’s even much better — more satisfying, you know.

Awards Belong to a Team

Kirk Bachmann: You know, I’ve been following along. What struck me wasn’t — you know, when we think about all of the accolades, and it’s not even just the accolades, Chef, that you’ve received, and we’ll get to all of those. But how you’ve talked about them. I saw your post right after North America’s 50 Best in New Orleans, and the one thing you said just really resonated with me. You wrote that awards may be received by one person, by one individual, but they are built by a team. So beautiful. And then, when Somni retained all three stars, you said almost the same thing: that recognition belongs to every single person who brings Somni to life each day. Where does that instinct come from to immediately turn the spotlight away from yourself and shine it brightly on your team?

Aitor Zabala: Well, I think it’s two different — well, two different things. One is because I’m not really into it to have the focus be on me. I don’t like that. I don’t. I don’t enjoy that. Even I know it’s a part of the business.
This is one, but another one: I was not always a chef, an owner. I was before a cook, a CDP, a sous chef. So I was on another part too. And I value those moments too. So now I’m aware that all these things are important, and without the job of many other people — always looking to be in the front of the page — I will not have the time to do another thing. So I think it’s so important to recognize people, because sometimes so many are in the back hiding there, and without them, it’s not possible to make it work.
This happens in all restaurants, you know, in all the industry. Without farmers, and the work of the farmers, and the schools that are teaching people — all these things — it’s a massive group of people that sometimes they don’t have the front light. And so for me, it’s always much easier to take that responsibility on myself too, because I don’t like that and I recognize how important it is. So I’m assuming that all the time, and it’s really deep in me.

Barcelona Lives in the Food

Kirk Bachmann: Yeah, yeah. That’s so genuine, and so humble. You know, the timing for our chat just worked out beautifully, Aitor. I just returned from Barcelona myself, where I spent time at a beautiful school called the Culinary Institute of Barcelona (CIB), which recently became part of the Escoffier family. And being there reminded me of how deeply food and culture and identity really are in Barcelona now. Now that you’ve spent many years actually in America, when someone experiences your restaurant, Somni, what part of Barcelona or Catalonia, if you will, do you hope that they experience through you, your team, and your food?

Aitor Zabala: Well, I think one part is an identity, you know. Catalonia and Barcelona have created an amazing language and an innovation and creativity, but basic and respected from the tradition. So I want people to feel in my cuisine — and when they come and eat our food — I don’t want to say my cuisine because obviously I don’t cook everything — I like the people to feel that. Find that they have a base of traditions, of respect, of generations of generations of people who did such massive work. And me, I come in here and I am now, and I try to do my interpretation of all that. Trying to innovate, trying to be creative, but in the same way, trying to explain — what are we coming from?

Kirk Bachmann: I had never been to Barcelona before, and we had some amazing food. And the one thing that was — we went to one little place which was so busy and so much in control. The people behind the counter were all at the counter, right? And there was fresh seafood everywhere. And I was just so stunned by the hospitality. They were taking care of us, recommending things, moving things, but also had an eye on the door at any time to bring new people in, and they were moving people through, and it felt so — it felt like: wow, this is a beautiful place to be. This is a beautiful place. Every single person felt welcome, whether you had food in front of you or you were excited to sit down. And that culture kind of permeated in every restaurant that we went to during the week. So, I feel — when I watched a very long presentation from a local television station in Los Angeles that came into your restaurant and went through all 30 courses — I felt the same sort of ambiance as if I was in Barcelona in your restaurant. It was just so scripted and so thought out. And so, is a lot of that by design, or is that an expression of your personality?

Aitor Zabala: Well, I think it’s personality and intention together. I think always I tell the team that the food is so important, the wine is so important, but the connection with the guests is what makes the difference. I think so. It’s always — I say it’s a million restaurants in the world where they have amazing food and amazing chefs and amazing servers and all these things. But how you connect and interact with the guests is what makes the difference. How you create that bond between them and the restaurant, creating a one-of-a-kind experience.
This is what I learned from being in the bar with my mom, because she had a bar, and I spent many times doing my homework from school in the bar, or spending the day there. Or I’d be playing in the street, and the bar is next to that, and then I’d go to pick up a snack before dinner. So I felt that life around all of that, and the connections they created — they are part of life and family. So I think I want to take that into a restaurant of a big caliber where people pay more, but the essence of that is what resonated inside me, and I want the staff and the team all the time to do that. If you can ask the team, it’s me always saying, “Let’s go talk to them. Let’s go connect with them.” And sometimes they’re even bothered: “We were just there. We was there. You know?” But I like that, because I think if we try to make it the most natural possible and create this connection, I think it’s immutable. I think it creates something that people remember forever. A place is nice too, and obviously you want to create that same thing with the food. But I think my biggest goal is the essence of hospitality, and the connection with the guests.

The Giraffe at the Door

Kirk Bachmann: I love the word essence, and I love how that’s connected with hospitality. It’s such a good lesson for our students who are just starting in this career and just learning, and for them to understand how important that is. You know, before we go further, I have something very fun that we have to talk about for a minute. I’ve seen it online, but when someone comes to Somni for dinner, the guests walk past a very tall yellow giraffe sculpture that takes them into a secret garden. And I just have to know — my wife’s gonna want one — but what’s the story behind the giraffe?

Aitor Zabala: Well, it’s a welcoming. I always find restaurants are really scary sometimes to walk into. It’s big doors. You don’t know what you’ll find in the back, and when you pass that door maybe you’re unsure. So I think for some people they create some difficulty — some apprehension. I will say it like that. So we put that giraffe there because I think it’s fun and it breaks the moment of people arriving at the restaurant, and it gives you a welcome into the space. You know, if you find a giraffe with its head outside the door — “What is this place?” — and this creates that, you know. And giraffes really express a lot about relaxing, even though they are actually an upset animal — they are really grumpy — but they give you a lot of comfort. And we have to do that. And after, it was funny, because when my mother came to the restaurant before it opened, she wanted — we called the giraffe her name. So now the giraffe is called Esther. It’s the name of my mom. And my mom all the time says, “What is Esther, doing?” So we connected nicely with the giraffe. I think it was a nice icebreaker — the arrival for the patrons.

Kirk Bachmann: That’s a great sense of arrival. Do guests like to take photos with the giraffe?

Aitor Zabala: Yeah. I think a lot of guests take a photo of the giraffe on the way in. I think the space is really welcoming for that. It’s really small, really sophisticated but really welcoming, and the same thing — people like that because it’s so intimate that it creates more intention when they arrive. And yeah, we have all the tags, you know, these new patrons that take the full photos and they come in only for the photos, and other people come for the experience. So yeah, we have all of that.

A Kid With No Purpose

Kirk Bachmann: Yeah, that’s great. And if we could go back a little bit, because your path into this world is one of my favorites I’ve come across in all the guests we’ve had over the years. And I think our students need to hear this. You didn’t grow up dreaming of Michelin stars, and you sort of found cooking almost by accident. So I’d love to talk about that army kitchen. You were 17 years old, cooking for 1,500 people a day, and you said that watching the chefs in their starched jackets is where you really found your calling. That’s what really motivated and moved you. What was it about that moment and that time in your life that sort of flipped the switch for you?

Aitor Zabala: Well, I think always I say I want to have a better, a more romanticized history of how I came into being a chef, because I have friends who have a grandmother who cooked in their kitchen, you know, helping to peel mushrooms or cooking with them — more beautiful stories like that. So more beautiful history about that.
Myself, I started to be interested in food always because my family came from a restaurant. My grandmother had a restaurant, and I had big moments around our food. But that was not connected in my mind at the time. I didn’t say, “Oh, I connected that, I want to be a chef.” I was just assuming food is good. That’s it. But then when I was 17, I was a young kid with no purpose, no focus, no intention. I assume — like many young people can feel, they can relate closely to that. And I decided to go to the army. At that time in Spain, I think it was the last two or three years it was mandatory to go — nine months to the army — and I decided to go there. I was trying to find a little bit of direction. I was useless in Barcelona, not studying, no purpose, nothing. So I said, “For wasting my time, maybe I can go to the army.” So I went to the army with no expectations. I went to the army to get out of the house, to be free from the control of my family, of my parents, of my grandma.
And by the casualty of life, they put me in the kitchen. And I found — I found something that moved me. It moved me inside a lot. I don’t know how to explain it, but I think it was the control, the organization, the cleanliness, the team, the camaraderie together. I think that clicked something inside me, really — made me click inside, find a path. And especially the two chefs — because they had two chefs. They came from outside the camp, but there was control, organized, telling the menus, what we do, what we don’t do. So they came every morning in their whites. And you remember the chefs — they had the blue and white squares, French style, yes, yes — pants. So they came in everything, with a big presence. And we were in our grey army suits — nothing special. But they were in a really different uniform, always pristine with the hat. And everyone was really respectful to them. So I said, “Oh, that’s interesting.” And I felt really more curious about it. So I was in the army, and I spent the best time there with my colleagues. I learned to cook chickpeas, you know, chopping things, frying things. So we cooked every day for 1,500. The brigade was maybe 50 cooks — a huge kitchen, a super industrial kitchen. Nothing like a fine dining restaurant. But I felt that it resonated inside me. And at that moment, everything in my head was clicking. So from there, everything started.

The Army Kitchen Click

Kirk Bachmann: Yeah. When I’m listening to your story, I think about Auguste Escoffier himself, who went into the military, and that’s exactly where he found his passion — the organization, the structure, the decorum, and everyone had a responsibility and a job to do. And in fact, every day when we start school here in Colorado, we have the students line up — not in a negative way, but in a very positive way — to celebrate the fact that they are in full uniform and their fingers are clean and their hair is groomed and all of that. So so important. And I loved seeing you, you know, on the website and such. You wear a beautiful full jacket. So many chefs today don’t, right? They wear versions of chef coats. But I love seeing you in that beautiful, beautiful jacket.

Aitor Zabala: Oh, I’m coming from a generation — for sure I’ll say old generation — but I’m that way. But for me, yeah. I feel love that you have a uniform and you respect it, because if you respect that uniform and you go in clean, you can cook the same way, you know. I assume it to do that. Maybe some people don’t need it — I mean, it’s great, I don’t need to say one is better than another. But for me, I think it’s the backbone, the basis of a chef. Be clean. You change to perform service from what you have for prep. You have a jacket for service, something already. You change it. I think that creates detail in yourself — the detail when you’re cooking, when you’re prepping, when you’re plating, when you’re cleaning, everything. So I think that creates a standard, and that is what I like about uniforms.
You know, sometimes we talk at the kitchen — “Oh, we in the beginning started making the mise en place with just a shirt,” and then some people three months after say, “No, no, no, no — let’s go back,” because people start coming every day and they start to be more flexible. Because in the day, they think, “Oh, today I don’t shave because I go with the shirt,” and “I don’t clean my shirt because it doesn’t matter, there’s just a shirt.” I think one thing leads to another. I try to be strict about this. And okay, my culinary team can tell you — every time: “Oh man, put up your pants.” All the time I go back to it because I think it matters, because the details are what make the difference. But I say it’s my opinion. It’s my kitchen and my restaurant — this way. I don’t mean that’s what everyone needs to do. I understand the new generations want to change things, and they think they do better, and they do better. I’m okay with that. But until it’s my restaurant, I like to do it this way. And if some people like to follow it, that’s great — because that is what brought me here, no?

Kirk Bachmann: Yeah, yeah. Well, I love the word standard, right? You set a standard, and then you live up to the standard. If you look good and you feel good, you cook well, right?

Aitor Zabala: You know, and people see you. I think it’s 100%. Some people come to the restaurant dressing well, so many people come in dressing well because they want to see a chef on the other side dressing. Sure, nothing is lost — it’s an interaction, and I think it’s the match you give to the guests. I think it’s important. But as I say, I see many top restaurants in the world — the best of the best. They have a shirt, and it’s okay. They’re working for them, and it’s perfectly respectful enough for that.

Talking Your Way Into Akelarre

Kirk Bachmann: Yeah, yeah, fully understand. You know, what came next, Chef — I just love to talk about this. You talked your way into an unpaid role — and correct me if I’m wrong — Akelarre?

Aitor Zabala: Akelarre. Akelarre is like a gathering of the demons, you know — aquelarre — that’s me. Okay, so after the military, I went to school. The school is called Hofmann. It’s in Barcelona. That changed everything for me. I finished the school and I tried different jobs in Barcelona, but they were more casual restaurants, and I felt that was not for me in that moment, because that was not really the way that let me express myself. So, one of my teachers in the school, Luis, recommended me to go there. He had some connections, so I called Pedro Subijana. This is the chef at Akelarre — three Michelin stars — and I said, “Can I have an interview with you and see if you can hire me?” And he said yes. So I picked a flight — solo, I was 18 years old — and arrived there. My aunt who lives in Bilbao, which is close to San Sebastián, like an hour, she took me there. I ate at the restaurant, I saw the space, and after dinner I had an interview with the chef. He said, “Well, how do you want to start?” He offered me to be a stagiaire, and I told him, “Okay, but I cannot do a long stage because it’s expensive, and I had no big resources at home, so I could only stay six months working for free.” So we arrived at a deal with Mr. Subijana: I work three months. If you like me, you hire me and you pay me. So I worked those three months hard — lunch, dinner, no middle days, long hours. And after three months, he hired me.
So, there I started to learn many things. I started to respect the products, the quality of the products, the picking of the products. The tradition, because the Basque Country food is really deep in tradition. But there was also the new Basque cuisine, impacted by the French nouvelle cuisine. And you could see all these new things, new ideas — how they reconstructed the dishes that were traditional and made them new. So, obviously the military started from cooking, but the fine dining wall started at Akelarre. I think seeing Pedro Subijana — everyone respected him. He’d come into the kitchen, everyone said “Chef.” Everyone saw him like the person. When you think of a chef — really elegant, really well-educated. So that was motivating. That was, yeah, motivating to ourselves to say, “Well, maybe that is what I want to be.” Obviously with my style, with my own things. It was at that moment you say, “Oh, I want to be in the fine dining world. I want to be in a restaurante gastronómico,” as we call it in Spain. And that started my career. I stayed there two years. It was great. I was picking flowers in the garden, I was picking the herbs, you know, things I had never done. Even in my home, food is so important — we go out to eat many times, and I think we had pretty good family food culture. But that started to open my eyes.

A Step Back to elBulli

Kirk Bachmann: And then what came next was elBulli.

Aitor Zabala: Well, next — no, well, next there were many other restaurants between the fine gastronomy restaurants with the traditional ones, the more modern ones. But the thing is, when I left Akelarre, I wanted to go to France. I wanted to work for Michel Guérard, one of the fathers of the Nouvelle Cuisine — or rather the father of the Nouvelle Cuisine more than Bocuse, some would say. But at the time I had a partner and she didn’t want to go to France. Because if you live in Eugénie-les-Bains, where the Michel Guérard restaurant is, it’s really a small town. It’s not a big city, so I cannot ask her to move there for a life like that.
So Pedro Subijana told me, “Oh, but maybe you can go to elBulli.” So he offered to connect me with them. I said, okay, it can be amazing — because I was seeing what had been one of the biggest books in my career, El Sabor del Mediterráneo, one of the biggest books by Ferran Adrià. When I saw that, I said, “It’s not possible. You can do that with food?” It blew my mind. And one of the chapters talked about the creative director, and that position really hit me so hard. I thought, “Oh, what is this creative director thing?” Because no restaurant ever had a creative director. You had the chef, a sous chef, an executive chef, a chef de partie, cooks and associates and other words. But “culinary creative director”? It was something strange — you’d think of it more in another type of company, another type of job. So he connected me with them, and they told me they would be hiring me. But for something else — the person was leaving, and then ended up not leaving. The one position I would be taking. So in the end, I was not able to go there, and I was really disappointed because it was my intention — going there was going to be crazy, what they were doing at that time.
But I went back to Barcelona, and I worked in Michelin-starred restaurants, more Catalan, more cocina de autor, the chef’s style. At some point, when I was at a restaurant called Alkimia as a CDP — I was in the role of CDC, actually — I felt great. I had a good position, a good pay. But one stagiaire from elBulli came to our restaurant to do a stage, and they told me, “Oh, they’re looking for CDPs.” So me — I was 28 years old, I think — I said, “Maybe I can try.” It was a big hit, because you are a CDC and you step back to be a CDP — you lose money, you lose position. You know that. But I said, “Let’s do it,” because I was really upset that I couldn’t go there. What’s really inside me? I need to go. So I make a couple of steps back. Maybe in the future those will become a couple of big steps forward.

Kirk Bachmann: And how long were you there ultimately?

Aitor Zabala: Four years. That was — oh my goodness. Yeah. I was four years at elBulli, and that changed everything — not only about the techniques and everything, but about the people who were there and how we had one direction: to be the greatest. And I worked in the lab, so that meant having the possibility to be developing and working with super talented people in development. That opened my mind, helped me understand more things — and not just do things because you know them, but to understand why you do them. I think it was great. And after that, that moment took me to meet José, and Anthony Bourdain, and that took me to the U.S.
So — the military was the school. Akelarre was the change: fine dining, and having clarity that I want to be in fine dining. Barcelona was the training from the bases — all the restaurants, Àbac and Alkimia, learning about base tradition, sauces, all those things, standards. And elBulli was the thought, the thinking, putting the ideas, being bold, trying anything. It was like a super master’s degree for that, no? And in the same way, I connected with the right people to take me professionally to another country.
So, in 2007 José came with Anthony Bourdain to film — No Reservations, I think, or something. I don’t remember which one. But he was making the film, and Ferran told me, “Why don’t you go with José this winter and spend time with him in the United States?” So I talked to José and said okay. And I came to work in the United States for six months, while the restaurant closed for the winter.

You Can’t Construct Without Destruction

Kirk Bachmann: I’m curious — going back to everything — are there some lessons that really stand out in your mind from Ferran Adrià that still show up in your cooking today? The way you think about food.

Aitor Zabala: Yeah. Well, I think I have many. Ferran is such an important part of my career — obviously, no doubt. But I think everyone is always focusing about the techniques and about the foams — the spherifications, the air, the gelatin, the things that changed the molecular — so-called molecular gastronomy. For me, it was more about the heart. Always — serve the best of the best. Everything needs to be fresh every day. Everything — it doesn’t matter if you have something from yesterday, you can never use it. You need to give the guest the highest quality in everything. And people always think about the techniques, not about this. But at elBulli, we learned a lot about the quality of the product. Without the quality of the product, there is no innovation, no investigation, nothing like that. Everything starts with the quality, with the base, with the essence of the cuisine.
If you use an anchovy, you need to use the best anchovy. If you have a shrimp, the shrimp needs to be the best possible. You use seaweed, it needs to be the freshest and the best quality of seaweed, and you need to treat it the best way and think about it. Obviously you can blend it and everything, because what we play really well with is maybe using a new technique where the flavor was not compact in that moment — but we make another elaboration that pushes it to the top. And both together make the peak of the flavor. That is really important and is so deep in me, in the cuisine we do. This is the biggest thing I learned from him.
And obviously the details, the study, the pushing, the day by day — creativity is not all inspiration and sudden moments. Inspiration is working every day in that. And for me, that is always something attached to me. Sometimes it’s even too much attached, because it creates so much frustration. But I take it as a gift — a positive thing. Even sometimes it’s the biggest stone in your bag.

Kirk Bachmann: You know, just having been in Barcelona last week, I was myself moved — even at the school — by the combination of this incredible respect for culinary tradition, coupled with this almost relentless desire to innovate. And this is a tough question, Chef. For a young cook, how do you teach a young cook to respect tradition, but to not be constrained by it? To sort of follow your path?

Aitor Zabala: Well, I think always I say: you cannot construct without destruction. Sometimes, you know. But I think I’m stealing that. I’m stealing that.
So the question is: you need to know the traditions to try to, after, make something new, because in that moment, what is tradition was at some point innovation. And we need to understand that. And understand that sometimes you want to be so much about innovating, but what do you need to innovate if something has been done for 2,000 years? Think — so many people have tried to innovate it, and they don’t see how it can be better than that. When you try to fight against that, there are other things you can innovate. I think you need to have the mind and the vision of innovation constantly — a creative mind for that. But the traditions give you — they give me, they give you — reality. They give you who you are. They say: don’t just make it for making something; use what you have and try to make it better. And if you cannot make it better, it’s fine — but first you need to know the tradition for everything, because if you don’t know where you’re coming from, you won’t make it into a new thing. I think it’s so important. And I try to explain to the staff, to teach the cooks: “Don’t try to make it only look beautiful, or make it just to make something.” Because yeah, it’s something temporary. You are young, you are looking for the lights, looking for the flashes and all these things. But with time — as it happened to me — you will look for more: for making it make sense when you put it on a plate. And if it makes sense, it doesn’t matter how beautiful it is.
Always I tell them: when I was 20, I wanted to put 700 things on a plate because I wanted to show how much I know, how many techniques I’ve learned, all of that. Now I am trying to take more and more things off the plate. I want to have fewer things on the plate.

Kirk Bachmann: I love that. By the way, that’s beautiful. And I fully agree. And it’s a perfect segue to what we’ll talk about next — and perhaps the most instructive of all — the fact that the line to your stars was not straight. The first Somni earned two stars, and then we were all faced with a pandemic in 2020. It forced you and many other restaurants to close. Take us back to that moment for a little bit. You spent five years trying to find the right place, fighting through delays and construction. But you kept your team together. What kept you going through all of that uncertainty? How did that dream stay alive?

Lost Battles, Not the War

Aitor Zabala: Well, I think — when this closed, we closed in March of 2020. The same — I think it was two days before that we were celebrating the second anniversary of the restaurant. So really big. It was also my birthday, so it was a really hard week on top of that. I know it was for many people too, but that specifically was hard.
And when we closed, I was never thinking it was done. I think it was something temporary, something uncontrollable in our hands. I thought it was not the right moment to close. Sometimes you have a dream, you make the dream, and when the thing’s gone, you know it’s gone — you don’t need to fight for it. It’s okay, let’s move on. But this was not the time to move on. I think we were great. The staff in that moment was really great. After two years, we were feeling like we were about to make the big click, with direction and intention and focus. So it was a big hit. We were thinking, “Let’s push for another thing” — something we cannot control, because the restaurant was not owned by me, it was owned by my company as partner with the hotel. And in October, they said they would not reopen. So that was a big kick. And in October I decided to leave my company that I had been working for 10 years, and where I had grown the company a lot. So it was really big.
Six months — you closed a restaurant where you had really succeeded, where you felt great. Then they tell you they’re not reopening. And you love your company. It was too much information in that time, too much — too many bad news in that moment. But the focus to open the restaurant and go back to what’s mine was never lost. Not for a single moment. I will say I was not pushing hard about it — and obviously my team in that moment was really small, because obviously I could not maintain everyone. I didn’t have a company now. I invested all my money to have a test kitchen, to keep the essence alive, to try to see what comes next. So I kept one person with me from my team, and others went to work in other places, but we stayed in contact. And that started the big part of this project.
I think cooking and having a restaurant is hard — it’s really a thing. But when you don’t have a restaurant and you’re trying — that is so much uncertainty, the hardest time. And for me, I was lucky because the first year I was not thinking about it too deeply. I was pushing, I was so energetic. I said, “Oh, this is not possible for us — we will go back.” A year later came a little bit of low time, I will say. Not depressing — I don’t want to use that word, because it wasn’t really that. I didn’t need to go to the doctor or anything. But it hit me really hard for three or four months, because I was not seeing any light. I didn’t see any steps moving forward. But little by little — I always say: I waited one more day. Then wait one more day. Then the next day, and the next day, until things started working better.
I finally found investors who could invest in the project. That brought excitement because it brought resources to find a space. We looked for many spaces that took so long. It took two years because I saw more than 75 spaces all around LA and nothing worked. When we found something, the other was perfect, but too expensive, or the permits didn’t work, or something else didn’t work. Until we finally found the plus — the space.
And that took so long too, because we saw the space — it was funny. I was walking around West Hollywood, going with my car past so many places, seeing if anything was available. In the beginning, in the first year, I saw the space — this space, which is where Somni is now in West Hollywood. But when I asked, they said, “We’re in negotiations with another party, so forget it.” Okay. Past one year, I’m walking down West Hollywood again and I still see the sign there. I say, “Oh, but they told me it was gone.” So I called them and said, “No, the deal was done, it didn’t work for the other party.” So okay — let’s take it. And from that moment, I started to be focused and excited again. We have one battle. We lost many battles, we won that battle. We lost many battles. Every day was like this for five years until we opened, until we made it real. So it was really exciting, but I will say we had far more lost battles than won ones — but we didn’t lose the war. In the end, it was the intention and the focus we had. And we were lucky in some way too.

Kirk Bachmann: And sometimes fate is what it is, right? It turns out the way it’s supposed to be. Chef, you’ve been incredibly candid about how hard this industry can be. I think I read a quote once where you said it can be painful, but you do this because you love to make people happy through your work. And I think that is the sign of many great people and a testimony to the concept of hospitality that we talked about earlier. Do you feel some of that tension still — even now, with three stars?

Painful and Beautiful

Aitor Zabala: Well, I think we are the same we were before. We’re chasing. We try to do better. We know that we need to work harder to maintain or do better, because what we did before — working hard — is what took us to where we are now. I’m not assuming that now, working less, we’ll make it better. Either we make it working more. Always I say it needs to be a little more. Everyone finds that a little controversial. I don’t think working eight hours a day you can make a restaurant that great, because it takes so much time. And it’s not only cooking — I need to go on Mondays this year because the kitchen equipment is not working, the AC needs to be checked out, you need to deal with the dog, you need a painter, you need a gardener, you need — it’s so much work to keep everything in order for when the guests arrive. So I think it’s not realistic to think that without effort you will make it.
So yeah, I think it’s that. Sometimes it’s painful because it’s an industry where you work many hours, where you lose many days with your family and friends. And when you’re serving food, they are having a good time — the summer, they’re on vacation, and you may be working. So it’s a different industry. And that — we can change it. I’m assuming we can, but you know, that’s another conversation. What we have now is what we are. And it’s hard.

Kirk Bachmann: Well, speaking of that, I’d love to spend a little bit of time inside Somni — the menu development, the craft, the respect for the craft and the caring of your team. I think it’d be great to talk about it. It’s almost unlike any restaurant in the world. 14 seats, one seating a night, a staff of 17, everyone wearing an earpiece, moving in what’s been described as precise choreography. I would love to — can’t share every secret, but it would be fun to demystify some of those, you know.

14 Seats, 24 Hands

Aitor Zabala: Actually, not 17 — we have 24. I wish it was 17. Cheaper than that, you know. So we have the space, which is really challenging to work in because it’s beautiful and intimate for the guests, but it’s really hard to operate for us because it’s so small. That makes it less — you know, you can’t have separate stations or sections for people to work in. You need to be working everywhere, constantly changing whatever you work on. That makes it challenging for us. The team is doing a great job at that. But we need the hands to do it.
The development — we’ve developed so much in five years that now we still have so many dishes from the past. Now the goal for the restaurant is to try to find a test kitchen space near the restaurant, so we can have a test kitchen running constantly and separate what is restaurant from what is test kitchen. Because now, if I’m in the middle of developing a dish, I’m probably in the middle of something that they need that space for in the restaurant. So now I feel we need to move on that. Our goal is to do that. But development now happens mostly from me. The best for me is when I have a sous chef helping me, and that is the goal for the future — to have a team doing that. But now we’re not even two years open, and we’re still trying to recognize where we’re going and how we can allocate resources for that.

Kirk Bachmann: Well, and again — not to give away too much — can we talk a little bit about development, just for the students? For example — and this is what students dream about — pizza meringue: clarified tomato water, turned into a meringue, and dried for 12 hours. That’s the easy way to just describe it. But what’s the process of how that idea even begins to make its way to a finished dish? Is it a memory, or —

The Provocation on the Plate

Aitor Zabala: No, I think it’s a provocation. For the pizza specifically, it’s a provocation. But the first is the technique we use. I use the meringue — I use it in all the menus — because I specialized at elBulli in doing a lot of meringues in the test kitchen and the lab. I spent six months in the lab only doing meringues to see what we can do — with what products, with egg whites, with no egg whites, with another gelatin, another protein, another emulsifier. So I tried many things, and I like the results.
But the pizza specifically — I was more of a provocation because I’m not a fan of pizza. I said — I don’t hate it, but I never order pizza. And I know America is really strong with pizza. Everyone loves pizza. Everyone has a pizza. You can have a pizza and everyone will be happy about it. Me, if someone asks and I have nothing else to eat, I will eat it. But you will never see me in a restaurant going and ordering a pizza. It’s not my thing. So how can I make it like a funny provocation joke — to make a pizza that is not a real pizza? That was the intention. And I created the lightest pizza possible. Always we make a joke that the pizza — because it uses some products that don’t have gluten — always say it’s the perfect pizza for LA because it’s gluten free. Always a little bit of provocation and fun for the guests.
But in the end, we use the best burrata possible. We find the pancetta from Spain — from Ibérico pork. We use the olive oil from Jaén, in Spain, the biggest olive oil producing estate in the world. And we have the best basil leaves, and we put some caviar. So the idea and the essence are really created, but the foundation — the flavor — is there, with the best products possible. That’s a really good representation of what Somni food is, in general.

Kirk Bachmann: Yeah, it always comes back to the flavor, right? The foams, the meringue — it all comes back to the flavor. And it starts with great ingredients. That’s the best lesson for our students — you have to start with great ingredients.

Start With the Best

Aitor Zabala: Yeah. I think — caviar, truffle, foie gras — all these luxury ingredients need to be good product. I mean, I like to always have in the menu a sardine, because it’s the expression of a product. Have a fresh sardine, all the fat in the meat. People always see a sardine as a really low product. And I think if you execute it right and make things, this is something really special.
So I think the product — the quality — whatever product you have, it needs to be in the best conditions and the best of the best within that type of product. I think that is so important. And without that, you cannot do anything else. You start with less. You have a bad tomato, you start with less. How much of a good chef you are, how many things you do — you will not have the great result around a tomato that is not the best of the best. And I tell the team: “We need to find the best avocado for this. The best tomatoes, we need to find.” And you need to be excited to try to find that, because this is what we are in essence. Without that — forget about all the techniques, all the preparation, all the elaborations we do. Because the restaurant is open at seven a.m. and we close at one a.m. All that doesn’t matter if you start with negative. You need to start with positive — and this means the product, finding the quality, the best of the best. If you cannot find better, I understand — but we try, and we need to do our best sourcing of the products always, because this, we say, is the backbone of everything.

Closing Wednesdays

Kirk Bachmann: Yeah. Recently I read that you — and this really means a lot — you announced that you’re going to close the restaurant on Wednesdays so that the staff can rest and recharge, and to your point, be with family, and maybe dedicate some of that time to being creative. Why was that decision so important to you? I applaud the decision. I think it’s very forward thinking. You’re thinking about your team, but why was it so important to you?

Aitor Zabala: Well, I think it’s always a temporary thing for right now — we see it because we do it for the summer. We are now four days closed, and September will go back to five days. And I wish it could be all year, because it gives us more time to do things we cannot do when the restaurant is open.
Because when the restaurant is open and you go — it goes when it’s a service day. We need to have opportunities to do other things. Not just developing, prepping, teaching classes — we use a Wednesday to do classes for the house to do service better, because during service you don’t have time to do that. You need to be in full go because so many things need to happen. But in the end, I think the balance is great, and it’s important to be efficient with your team — demanding of your team — but in the end they need free time too. They need to have a good time to enjoy life. And I think they deserve it.
So I think it needs to be this balance that I never had before — I never had it, never — always working, working, working. And I think it’s a necessity — a necessity for me, a necessity for developing, because I don’t have time. When I’m working the days the restaurant is open, I have an interview, I need to prep something, I need to do something, I have a phone call and meetings and things like that. And I think that extra day gives me the opportunity to be more focused. And the team — they know they’re coming in four days, and they need to go straight, because they have three days and they think: “I have three days for rest, for balance, for enjoying, for spending the money I make.” And when they come here, they can be four days focused on what’s important. So because before I was saying, “Well, I’m giving everything to the restaurant, I don’t have free time.” But now — you have free time, but when you’re here, you’re here. This is the demand. You have four days, you need to be fully focused here. And another three days — that’s all yours. I think that is the more important thing.
So now we have a summer time schedule. September we go back to five days, and we’ll see at the end of the year if it’s possible to do this all year. Because in the end, running a restaurant in America — in LA — is really expensive. It’s expensive everywhere, of course.

Kirk Bachmann: Sure, yeah. And it’s hard to balance all of this with that.

Be Hungry. Find Your Path.

Kirk Bachmann: Yeah, absolutely. We’re coming close to our hour. I have two quick questions. I’m so appreciative of your time. For a student — a young student who’s just getting started and listens to you and reads about Escoffier and Ferran Adrià and José Andrés and others, and wants to cook at that level one day — is there one habit or even mindset that you could tell them to focus on improving and building upon today, so that they can find success tomorrow?

Aitor Zabala: Well, success is really hard to measure because everyone has a different version of success — and that’s fine. But I think: be hungry. Be hungry to learn, be hungry to educate yourself, to follow and learn and be positive about it. And have this passion. You know, introduce this passion. These people we talk about — Escoffier, Ferran, José — they left so many things behind too to arrive at where they are. And I think that is important. People need to understand that it’s not easy, and that is the biggest thing. You don’t want it to be easy either, because not everyone can do it.
But I think the most important thing is: be hungry, and want to learn. Keep your ears open and listen. And obviously, you can have your doubts. Someone can explain something to you, and maybe you don’t agree with it, and maybe you can change it. But it’s always good to learn, even if it’s the wrong thing — because that teaches you what you want to do. I think I learn more from things I see that I don’t want to do than from things I see that were good to do. It’s so important.
And I think: put it all — all of yourself — into this. Doing things at 50% — you will not reach that level of these people. We talk about three people who are at the top of history. Everyone wants to be Ferran Adrià, but there’s only one. We always want to be Carême, and there’s only one. I think you need to be yourself. It’s so important. It’s good to have inspiration from these people, but you don’t need to be chasing them — because that will only be a frustration to you. I think you need to find your path, learning and educating yourself. That is the most important thing.

Kirk Bachmann: That’s great advice. That’s great advice. And there’s only one Aitor, Chef Aitor — by the way, there’s only one. Yeah.

Aitor Zabala: Lucky for us.

Aitor’s Ultimate Dish

Kirk Bachmann: Lucky for us. Our final question, Chef. The name of the show is The Ultimate Dish, so I like to ask every guest at the end: in their mind, what is the ultimate dish? Could be a memory, could be something that’s on the menu today, or something that you’re thinking about for tomorrow.

Aitor Zabala: For me, the ultimate dish — and it’s a simple thing — it’s: pick up a nice bread, cut the bread, make it into a slice, toast the bread, rub it with a little bit of garlic — only a little bit — pick up a nice tomate de rama, rub the tomato. Put a nice Spanish olive oil — please, please — and a little bit of salt. And you have a pan con tomate. And everything is done. You don’t need anything else in life. Maybe you can have a little bit of Verdejo wine if you’re lucky. But I think that is the expression of simplicity — how something that simple with good products can be something that amazing. It can be a hit. You know, always people say, “Oh, what do you teach me to do? Pan con tomate? Oh, come on — bread, tomato, olive oil.” But yeah, you know — and that doesn’t show you how a couple of things can be magic. And I would love to be the creator of pan con tomate. It will be somebody — what a play. You want to be the creator of pan con tomate, because it stays forever. Everyone’s mind is blown. Everyone’s talking about it. It’s been here for centuries and centuries, and you don’t need anything else.

Kirk Bachmann: That’s the perfect answer. What a way to wrap up the show, Chef. Thank you. You’re so busy — you’re flying around, you’re taking care of your guests. We so appreciate this time. I’ll send you a little note about our little school in Barcelona.

Aitor Zabala: Oh yeah. I’ll be there in two weeks. I will be there in two weeks, so I’ll go for a couple of days. So maybe if I have time, I will walk around there.

Kirk Bachmann: That would be wonderful. Yeah, our friends in Barcelona are on holiday right now, so they’ll be ready for you in two weeks. Chef, thank you, thank you so much for joining us. We really appreciate you, and best of luck in the future.

Thank you for listening to The Ultimate Dish podcast brought to you by Auguste Escoffier School of Culinary Arts. Visit escoffier.edu/podcast to find any materials mentioned during the podcast, including notes, links, and other resources. And if you can, please leave us a rating on Apple or Spotify and subscribe to support our show. This helps us reach more aspiring individuals ready to take the next step toward their dream careers. Thanks for listening.