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LA chef Josef Centeno’s restaurant, Orsa & Winston, has a Michelin star and he’s got a new cookbook, “Ama: A Modern Tex-Mex Kitchen,” written with veteran journalist Betty Hallock. Seen here, carne guisada tacos, a recipe from the book. (Courtesy of Chronicle Books)
LA chef Josef Centeno’s restaurant, Orsa & Winston, has a Michelin star and he’s got a new cookbook, “Ama: A Modern Tex-Mex Kitchen,” written with veteran journalist Betty Hallock. Seen here, carne guisada tacos, a recipe from the book. (Courtesy of Chronicle Books)
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Chef Josef Centeno started making a name for himself at top kitchens in New York and San Francisco including Vong, Daniel, Charles Nob Hill and Manresa. Then he hit the big time in Los Angeles opening Bäco Mercat in 2011 and following up with, among others, Bar Amá and Orsa & Winston, which was awarded a coveted Michelin star in June.

He’s been called the “culinary mayor” of Downtown LA restaurants, but his latest cookbook, written with life partner and veteran journalist Betty Hallock, reminds us that he’s always been a San Antonio homeboy. Its title pays tribute to  Amá, his great-grandmother, who is a constant inspiration to him.

  • LA chef Josef Centeno’s restaurant, Orsa & Winston, has a...

    LA chef Josef Centeno’s restaurant, Orsa & Winston, has a Michelin star and he’s got a new cookbook, “Ama: A Modern Tex-Mex Kitchen,” written with veteran journalist Betty Hallock. Seen here, Josef Centeno, left, with Betty Hallock, right. (Courtesy of Chronicle Books)

  • LA chef Josef Centeno’s restaurant, Orsa & Winston, has a...

    LA chef Josef Centeno’s restaurant, Orsa & Winston, has a Michelin star and he’s got a new cookbook, “Ama: A Modern Tex-Mex Kitchen,” written with veteran journalist Betty Hallock. Seen here, carne guisada tacos, a recipe from the book. (Courtesy of Chronicle Books)

  • LA chef Josef Centeno’s restaurant, Orsa & Winston, has a...

    LA chef Josef Centeno’s restaurant, Orsa & Winston, has a Michelin star and he’s got a new cookbook, “Ama: A Modern Tex-Mex Kitchen,” written with veteran journalist Betty Hallock. (Courtesy of Chronicle Books)

  • LA chef Josef Centeno’s restaurant, Orsa & Winston, has a...

    LA chef Josef Centeno’s restaurant, Orsa & Winston, has a Michelin star and he’s got a new cookbook, “Ama: A Modern Tex-Mex Kitchen,” written with veteran journalist Betty Hallock. (Courtesy of Chronicle Books)

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“Amá: A Modern Tex-Mex Kitchen,” from Chronicle Books, brings him full circle, back to his roots. It’s a bit of a memoir; the recipes are interwoven with his family’s fascinating history. Great-grandfather Joe Centeno Sr. created the first independent chain of Latino supermarkets in the U.S. On his mother’s side, his great-grandfather, Apá, fought in the Mexican Revolution with Amá by his side as a soldadera, one of many wives who traveled with their soldier husbands to cook and care for them.

The book has been well received, already getting a nod from Eater in the “Best Cookbooks of Fall 2019” preview as well as a recommendation in the website’s 2019 LA Holiday Gift Guide.

We caught up with Centeno on a rare day off to hear his take on Tex-Mex cuisine — he defends its legitimacy as fiercely as Davy Crockett fought for the Alamo. We also wanted to get up to speed on his dynamic restaurant empire: He closed his vegetarian concept, PYT, in February then opened Amácita in July in Culver City.

Here is what was on his mind during a phone conversation that ranged from queso to cleaning his own windows.

Q: Your last cookbook focused on Los Angeles. Food & Wine magazine said it was about being an Angeleno and an American who breaks boundaries and celebrates multicultural flavors. Why did you hightail it back to Texas for this book?

A: I don’t think I ever left. It’s funny but I think that, through my cooking career and traveling, I was running away from it. You know, being a kid and going against the establishment and trying to do my own thing and getting away from the food I was raised on and really influenced the way my palate developed and evolved.

Q: So you had to leave to appreciate it?

A:  I started working in vegetarian Mexican restaurants in San Antonio and in Austin. But then I went to New York and was exposed to French cooking and my mind was completely blown and all I wanted to do was learn that whole style. Then I got introduced to Spanish and Catalonian cooking and moved to San Francisco and my whole world was kinda spun around there. When I moved to LA, I got really into Japanese cooking. So I was doing the full spectrum of food that would influence me.

Q: When did you start thinking Tejano again?

A: When I opened Bäco Mercat I knew that I wanted to start getting back to rediscovering the food I was raised on. And I opened Bar Amá and that’s when I started talking to family and remembering amazing food memories. So with all of my experience I was able to reinterpret it in a different way. When I cook Tex-Mex I’m honoring the immigrant struggle.

Q: It’s fun reading your family’s story along with the recipes. You had Spanish, French and Irish ancestry before your folks got to the U.S.

A: But then the Mexican Revolution started and everyone fled to Nuevo Laredo and San Antonio and that’s when Tex-Mex started. Amá was cooking dorados, golden tacos, in 1918.

Q: In a train station. Right? 

A:  Apá was in the Mexican army and they were on a train and Amá was a soldadera and she was on the top of the train. The front of the train got blown up and they were were separated for like three or four years. So she would show up to the train station with her mother-in-law and they would just cook dorados to make ends meet. But she knew if she ever would run into Apá again it would be at the train station. And they were reunited.

Q. Great story! You mention all these San Antonio foodie touchstones like the lunch counter at Olmos Pharmacy and the Pig Stand. Most Angelenos know you as the fine dining superstar. But this book reintros you as the San Antonio homey. Intentional?

A: It just kinda happened. I think for me it was just I come from a very tight knit family and they’ve always been very supportive in letting me do my thing. My home is here in LA but it was important to honor the family and to put a new light on Tex-Mex food.

Q: Because so many mainstream advocates of Mexican regional cuisine have put it down in the past?

A: There have been so many negative things to the way people perceive it. Tex-Mex has never claimed to be Mexican.  It’s an American regional cuisine that is composed of many different cultures coming together in an area trying to recreate the food where they’re from with the ingredients at hand. That’s really how Tex-Mex has developed.

Q: So, it’s been presented to the masses in a false light?

A: In the last 40 years that’s when Tex-Mex got commercialized and big corporations have profited from it. … I hope that’s the takeaway, that Tex-Mex is not Taco Bell and it’s not Chili’s. That was just kind of an error in time.

Q. True Tex-Mex is homey, comfort food. Right?

A: Tex-Mex restaurants in San Antonio made everything made from scratch. …That’s the way real Tex-Mex cooking is and then all these big corporations took this idea and devalued it and said tacos should be 30 cents and these poor families doing everything the right way weren’t able to compete. Those big corporations brought in all the processed foods and everyone had to compromise to survive. So that’s where everything got blurred. That’s not what Tex-Mex is at all.

Q: Rick Bayless and Diana Kennedy’s cookbooks are about Mexican regional traditions. Until now there haven’t been many high profile cookbooks for Tex-Mex cuisine. 

A: That’s right. It’s not Mexican. It’s Tex-Mex. I’m not a big fan of Rick Bayless or Diana Kennedy. I respect them but I think they were not in the right (in marginalizing Tex-Mex cooking) and I think it’s contributed to the misinformation and misunderstandings.

Q: You say in the book Tex-Mex is influenced by the American South, Germany, Poland, Morocco. As an Alamo City native, I knew about the Canary Islanders settling in San Antonio, but I didn’t know about Morocco. Is that how ginger, turmeric and other spices come in?

A: Yeah, it’s the Silk Road; all that made its way through. The Canary Islanders brought cumin and it’s used a lot in Tex-Mex but not as much in Mexico.

Q: I’ve tried some of the recipes, and as a Tex-Mex home cook, I have to say they’re delicious. The peel-and-eat shrimp with peanuts is like kung pao shrimp took a trip to San Antonio. The cocktail with the name that can’t be mentioned in a family newspaper is refreshing; the crushed ice makes it like a gin raspa (Mexican snowcone). You also have Lobster Diablo, a decadent Tex-Mex answer to lobster thermidor: “Serve with tortillas and a cold bottle of Chablis. ” You won’t read that anywhere else.

A: Exactly!

Q: Queso seems to be a theme in your life, with the queso fountain for your first cookbook launch party, and you wrote an amazing recipe  for Bon Appetit magazine with Velveeta,  half-and-half and chorizo.

A: I didn’t really get queso until I moved to Austin.

Q: What happened there?

A:  Kerbey Lane and Magnolia Cafe. … Queso is a thing in Austin and you never go back after that.

Q: So no more Velveeta and Ro-Tel tomatoes in the microwave?

A: Well, the thing is… the recipe we do, I introduce Brebirousse, it’s one of my favorite cheeses, and adds  an undertone of delicious flavor. So that’s where I’m combining everything and elevating it slightly.

Q: You also do a second spin with a vegan cashew queso.

A: Vegetables have always played an important part in my cooking and I wanted to make people happy who were unable to have cheese.

Q: Catch us up on your restaurants. I loved PYT and the minute I finally got to write about it in a brunch story, it closed! Was it ahead of its time?

A: I just got the opportunity to get out free and clear and was able to sell. And just because the industry is changing so much in Los Angeles, I was trying to Marie Kondo my life.

Q: Ha! What else is happening in your world? 

A:Seven years ago we were one of a dozen restaurants downtown and now there’s like 15 dozen and construction hasn’t slowed down at all.

Q: One last question: Do you still wash the windows at Bäco? That’s so Tejano!

A: I still do a lot of DIY.