Chef Luis Navarro wins first round of Long Beach Grand Prix Fixe competition

Chef Luis Navarro of Lola’s and The Social List narrowly ousted Chef Johnathan Benvenuti of Bar Becky in the first round of the first bracket of the inaugural Long Beach Grand Prix Fixe competition. The diner-chosen winner, a Long Beach culinary veteran whose Lola’s space has been serving the city for over 15 years, was honored.

“I’m in my mid-40s,” Chef Luis said. “And while I know I am still young, there just comes the reality of getting older—and that means less energy. This experience made me realize that, despite less energy, I can keep up with the young ones. Chef Johnathan—we met through this process for the first time—feels like a little brother to me now. What he left behind in that kitchen? Can’t be questioned.”

The spread between the two chefs was wildly close—as in we had to count thrice to make sure our numbers weren’t off. Two points. That’s it. Meaning if a patron had chosen Chef Johnathan’s entree just once over Chef Luis’s, he would have been the winner.

Individual dishes—an amuse-bouche and three courses—were ranked with weights by the diners who experienced them. (Nothing involved a formal panel of judges and I did not sample any of the dishes until after service.) The amuse-bouche would score its winner one point for each vote while the second and dessert courses scored two points; the entree was the heftiest with three points per vote.

Old-school versus new-school: Chef Johnathan Benvenuti takes on Chef Luis Navarro

Chefs were randomly chosen by picking a day they would compete out a jar pot during a pre-game meeting at Selva for the competition. Chef Johnathan and Chef Luis ended up picking Sept. 8, the first date of the competition, as our official guinea pigs.

The juxtaposition of it couldn’t be more serendipitously cool. On one hand: a Long Beach veteran with decades of experience under his belt. On the other: a newly minted chef who has quickly garnered respect.

And the menus? Couldn’t be more culinary different—which proved for a viable competition.

Bracket 1 is all about formation: What formed the chef’s culinary identity?

Chef Luis came with a menu that was weighted with the reality of our current times. As we watch our Latino and Latin-American brothers and sisters get nothing short of kidnapped, Chef Luis wanted to remind that the food we often find on the regular in our country was brought by an immigrant. Focusing on his own Mexican heritage—including his wife’s connection to Guanajuato as well as his mother’s toward Jalisco—he brought a menu that jumped from the valleys of Oaxaca to the coastline of the Pacific. Scallop crudo tostada. Achiote-marinated Chilean sea bass. A mole negro using the ingredients of the late and great Chef Susana Trilling herself. A Mexican hot chocolate tart…

At the other side of the diner, Chef Johnathan, arguably our city’s most playful, whimsical chef. At the center of his cooking, as with all his creations, sits his mother, Becky. (Hence the name Bar Becky for his first restaurant.) And this menu was no exception: He had a steak tartare done animal style, an ode to the fact that on their way to their mother’s first cancer treatment, they stopped at In N Out. His mom also loved the best of the fowls: duck. So duck was treated across a variety of its awesomeness. In a liver mousse worthy of jarring. In a konro-grilled breast with figs and jus. Or in a fazoletti pasta dish that was like duck-gone-chicken pot pie.

A few personal words on the Long Beach Grand Prix Fixe.

As someone who has known the majority of these chefs rather intimately, I cannot say on a personal level how proud I am of what was accomplished on night one. Nerve-wracking. Excitement-inducing. Definitely worth every ounce of effort put it, what makes this competition so wildly fulfilling is witnessing the evolution of these chefs as the competition continues.

Guests were given a treat box from Gemmae Bake Shop for the Long Beach Grand Prix Fixe. Photo by Brian Addison.

As someone involved in the very gregarious group text we have, they are not just proud of themselves and their culinary purveyors, but also proud of the city they represent. Ultimately, Long Beach is worth such a competition—and the chefs themselves are honoring their belief in that ideal through these ambitious menus.

Also, it was such a pleasure to see the patrons come out in support and, in what could only feel like a compliment, often hear people were “so proud that something which feels like it should be in L.A. is in Long Beach.” I couldn’t have said it better myself.

Next up? Chef Waldo Stout of Due Fiori and Waldo’s Pizza versus Chef Max Pfeiffer of Sky Room on Sept. 15.