Baco

Josef Centeno is the chef-owner of four acclaimed restaurants in downtown Los Angeles: Bäco Mercat, Bar Amá, Orsa & Winston and Ledlow. He grew up in San Antonio and attended the University of Texas in Austin before deciding to pursue a chef's career and enrolled at the Culinary Institute of America in New York. Josef's tasting menus at a restaurant called Opus in Koreatown were famously groundbreaking: You could order as many courses as you wanted for $10 each. And when he opened Lazy Ox in Little Tokyo, it was the first restaurant that shifted critical attention to downtown Los Angeles. By the time Bäco Mercat opened, Josef had paved the way for chefs and restaurateurs who have flocked to downtown Los Angeles. Betty Hallock is a food writer who was born in Japan and grew up in California and formerly was an editor in the LA Times' award-winning Food section. As deputy food editor and a founding editor of the Daily Dish blog, she helped direct food and drink coverage, writing and editing stories about restaurants, cooking, cocktails, business trends, and more. While at the Times she also helped oversee the editing and testing of recipes from the L.A. Times Test Kitchen, one of the few newspaper test kitchens in the country. After departing in the autumn to freelance, she continues to contribute to the Times. Josef and Betty are married, and live in Downtown LA with their two dogs.