At Bar Becky, Chef Johnathan Benvenuti sounds freer than he has in years. Less interested in pleasing the casual walk-in crowd. Less willing to dilute what lands on the plate. And more committed to making food that reflects exactly where he and his incredible kitchen—backed by Chefs Oriana Aguilera, with him since day one (and also when the space was formerly Remix Kitchen) and Chef Nathon Vo—are right now.
After years of navigating the realities of operating inside Long Beach Exchange—high rent, inconsistent foot traffic, landlord frustrations, and the constant question of how much to bend a concept to match its surroundings—Chef Johnathan says he has arrived at a sharper, more personal place: “I really don’t care what the landlords think or what people who’ve never had my food think… I’m not in a position to devalue our product just to make money.”
What that has produced is perhaps the most confident version of Bar Becky yet: a restaurant that feels less guarded, more collaborative, and entirely uninterested in sanding down its edges for comfort.
‘The people who make Bar Becky survive are the Long Beach food scene people.’
What makes this chapter especially compelling is that it comes after a long stretch of uncertainty. Bar Becky has survived not through easy momentum but through incremental trust: regulars who keep returning, diners who ask what is new, and a growing crowd willing to drive specifically for Chef Johnathan’s food.
“The people who make my business survive are the Long Beach food scene people, the people who are excited about food, the people who want to see me change things,” he said.
The restaurant may still battle the realities of its location—busy for an hour, empty the next, burdened by rent that makes otherwise solid monthly numbers feel insufficient—but the tone has shifted from survival to authorship. And underneath it all remains the emotional core that has always anchored Bar Becky: his mother, Becky, whose memory still hangs over the room, physically and spiritually. Chef Johnathan admits he thinks about her constantly, especially now that the food feels more daring than ever.
“I think about my mom a lot,” he said. “She’d be so stoked. And her presence here never, never loosens around here or my work.”
In that sense, this menu is not simply seasonal—it feels like a declaration that after years of compromise, he has arrived at a place where the restaurant finally reflects exactly what he wants it to be: flawed, bold, collaborative, and unapologetically his.
Bar Becky might still be Long Beach’s most underrated restaurant—but it’s never been more consistent or confident in what it is than now.
That shift is visible not just in tone but in how the kitchen now works. Much of the current menu is built collectively, with Chef Johnathan leaning into the ideas of his younger chefs rather than centering every dish solely through his own voice.
“Most of the menu right now is really all of us,” he said. “Chef Oriana did the dessert. Chef Nathan did the duck… As a team, we’re just collaborating on food. And we’re proud about.”
For a restaurant once still searching for its footing, that looseness now reads as maturity. It’s not uncertainty or unabashed we-will-see-if-it-works-with-a-shirk, but trust. Trust in his team. In his instincts. And in the diners who specifically seek out Bar Becky because they want to see what changes next.
That freedom is especially evident in the spring menu, where Chef Johnathan’s signature love of nostalgia (if not some wistfulness given his mom’s heavenly presence) flickers beneath the surface but increasingly gives way to playful detours and rule-breaking combinations.
Bar Becky’s spring menu is a wondrous celebration of everything Chef Johnathan Benvenuti loves: Nostalgia. Comfort. And a sense that food can make you feel like family.
There’s a pork belly dish that feels simultaneously very Bar Becky while also, in appreciation, deviating. Chef Johnathan’s take on Thai larb, he douses with radish, lettuce wraps, and fish sauce, driving brightness through richness.
There’s a shrimp cappelletti that channels cioppino through an entirely different lens: a dashi-based broth sharpened with Pernod, fennel, chile flake, and orange, filled with seafood and finished with a pepperoni XO—”honestly just an excuse to get pork into the dish”—that adds a smoky finish.
Elsewhere, the menu swings confidently between comfort and invention. Fried cauliflower arrives with roasted peppers, Castelvetrano olives, capers, garlic oil, and herbs—a kitchen shorthand version of puttanesca stripped of orthodoxy and unnecessary labels.
A spring asparagus plate, inspired in part by a dish one of his chefs became obsessed with after watching Netflix’s underrated Culinary Class Wars. Layers of shockingly sweet Meyer lemon puree, Szechuan peppercorn, and grilled prosciutto into something that feels at once familiar and unexpectedly sharp.
And as always, there is a witty star of a dish that melds so many feelings: sentimentality and familiarity, yes, but something new.
Perhaps no dish better captures Chef Johnathan’s current mindset than the pork chop: originally developed for the chef’s counter tasting menu, it is now reborn as a kind of anti-signature signature.
Built as a play on pineapple pizza, a massive, sliced chop sits atop a pool of a yeasted cream sauce—deeply savory, almost cheese-and-bread-like—and topped with grilled pineapple, Thai basil oil and leaves, and a hot honey glaze. Then, hiding off to the side, a tomato jam that feels like a bright barbecue sauce, cooked down until it carries concentrated pizza-parlor sweetness without becoming literally that.
“It hits all those pizza notes, but not,” Chef Johnathan said said. “There’s no starch… it’s not an average dish, and I take a lot of pride in that.”
Melded together, it can give hints of pastor, pizza, and French cooking simultaneously. It is both deeply Californian and impossible to classify cleanly, which is exactly the loving point of nearly everything Chef Johnathan creates.
A look into the incredible spring menu at Bar Becky in Long Beach…
Beautifully vegetable-forward. Plenty of pasta. Plenty of proteins. And a damn near perfect melding of Chef Johnathan’s obsession with nostalgia and comfort with his newfound desire to push into new territory…
Let’s start with some of the starters:
Focaccia and butter: house-made focaccia | compound herbed butter
Cauliflower: olives | peppers | capers | tomato gravy
Asparagus: Meyer lemon | prosciutto | Szechuan peppercorn
Pork Belly: toasted rice | spicy radish | Thai herbs
Mom’s Carrots: maple | burrata | seasonal nut
Hamachi Crudo: last year’s kosho | avocado | hibiscus | sweet potato
Beet Salad: Meyer lemon | strawberry | pumpkin seed granola
And the pastas…
All in-house, Bar Becky’s pasta program continues to shine in a world where Long Beach pasta has undergone a renaissance.
Shrimp Cappelletti: cioppino | pepperoni XO | saltine crackers
Ricotta Gnudi: smoked lamb | ramps | fava bean | fennel pollen
Blue Corn Spätzle: pork birria | cotija | cilantro | pickled onion
Chicken & Dumplings: potato gnocchi | braised chicken | sour cream
Bone Marrow Bolognese: house pappardelle | burrata
Spaghetti Limon: uni butter | nori | tempura | Italian chili crunch
And the proteins of Bar Becky…
As always, Chef Johnathan’s proteins shine and I suggest should be passed around the table rather than ordered individually—especially his pork chop, duck, and swordfish.
Beeler’s Pork Chop: tomato gravy | pineapple | toasted yeast
Grilled Duck: caraway | cabbage | strawberry | black garlic
Swordfish Au Poivre: pink peppercorn | shoestring potatoes
Bar Becky is located at 3860 Worsham Ave.
