Q & A With John Sedlar: Retirement, The Food Network + Where Are Our Latino Chefs

A. Scattergood

John Sedlar of Rivera, with lamp

John Rivera Sedlar, who opened his downtown restaurant Rivera a year and a half ago, has been one of Los Angeles' best chefs for decades: before Rivera, before the chef "retired" for 15 years, before the Museum Tamal, back to when he ran St. Estephe and Bikini. Sedlar's return was much heralded, and in the 18 or so months since Rivera opened, Sedlar hasn't stopped working or cooking: he's refined his menu, tinkered with the spices and played musical (tequila) chairs with the rooms and the food. Recently the chef unveiled not one new menu but three simultaneously, each in a different room, each a paean to a different Latin cuisine. It's an ambitious and playful project, both of which adjectives describe Sedlar himself, who is opening another restaurant in November.

We sat down to chat with the chef recently, in the back room of Rivera devoted to the Spanish Sangre menu, over a cup of coffee and next to the wall of tequila and a few hilarious Conquistador helmet lamps. Turn the page for the first part of the interview, and check back tomorrow for part two, and Sedlar's recipe for Scallops Arabesque.

Squid Ink: Where to start?

John Sedlar: Where to start -- I just don't know. It's just such a colossal, amazing time for restaurateurs and chefs and food writers. We're so lucky to be in this industry right now. It's just on fire; it's white hot.

SI: It seems that way. And you've been in this town for how long exactly?

JS: 73, 83, 93, 2000... Forty years. Forty years. Yes.

SI: How has it change relative to what you do, to Latin food? That seems to have changed a lot, especially recently. At the risk of over-generalizing... what's the best thing that's happened to it?

JS: Great question. And I don't know what the answer is to the best thing that's happened to it. But I think one or two of the major things that have changed, from my perspective, after having retired from the food industry and then coming back, is that the customers have changed. It's not the chefs; the chefs have always been creative. the customers and the staff have changed, to a really wonderful level. And it's completely changed how I approach my job as a chef. It's just, they're interested. Of course it all probably started with the Food Network, which was based out of New York. People say that the viewers don't necessarily know how to cook any better, but they really know how to order food in restaurants. They know how to read a menu, they know what the ingredients are. There's no mystique. The mystique has been lifted. They're interested and they promote restaurants, so they support them. The restaurants support the farmers; they go to the farmers markets. The cooks are much more serious than when I left the industry. The cooks are focused, passionate, educated, great knife skills. The staff and the customers are just wonderful.

SI: So how long were you retired?

JS: 15 years. I came out of retirement [to open Rivera]. Some friends of mine said, let's roll the dice again, and it's been really wonderful. A year and a half since we opened.

SI: So much so that you're opening another restaurant.

JS: Yes. It seems like the right thing to do.

SI: Instead of a food truck, say.

JS: Gosh, those food trucks. But to answer the question about what's happened to Latin food, I was just talking to my chefs in the kitchen, frustrated. And I said, Why is it that the top Latin chefs in our country and in our city are all Anglos? Rick Bayless is such a terrific chef and Wolfgang Puck is the chef at Conga Room: his organization does all the food for that organization. So between that great Austrian-Latin chef and Jimmy Shaw [chef-owner of Loteria Grill]...

And I say, what's wrong with the Latinos in this city? I think that California is just getting a backseat reputation because it's second to New York, where the Food Network is and most publishing, and so. But I think Los Angeles really has the potential to be the greatest food city in the world. And I think that because of the ethnic enclaves it can be the most flavorful food. And where are our Latino chefs? Where are the students and the cooks in our kitchens that should be creating explosively delicious food with their foundation, their basic knowledge, what's in their genes, what's in their roots, what they had growing up? Why aren't they translating those dishes into delicious food? And I think it's a problem.

SI: So why, do you think?

JS: And I was talking to my cooks, who are mostly Latinos, and I said, What's wrong with us? What's wrong with you guys? Why aren't you taking the baton? The customer wants it now. Why aren't you getting those big positions? Why isn't there a Latino running the Conga Room? Why isn't there a Latino running Bayless's restaurant? I wonder if it isn't the Latino-ness in us, if there's a personality trait, a cultural trait; I don't know. It's a question I put on the table and I said, We're going to discuss this more and we're going to look at all the angles. Why, why, why, and what are you guys going to do about it?

SI: So what did they say?

Location Info

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Rivera

1050 S. Flower St., Los Angeles, CA

Category: Restaurant

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