Biography
Chef Steven Rojas impressively started his culinary career at the age of 18, working alongside Master Chef Jean François Meteigner, owner of La Cachette in Los Angeles. Despite his exciting introduction to the culinary world, Rojas aspired to be a professional soccer player and eventually left La Cachette. An ankle injury, however, ended his professional athletic career, leading the young Rojas to pursue his true calling of becoming a chef.
Rojas enrolled at Le Cordon Bleu’s California School for the Culinary Arts in South Pasadena, and began developing his skills both in and outside of the classroom. In 2001, after graduating, he moved to Chicago to work with Rick Tramonto at TRU restaurant, which specializes in progressive French cuisine. After a year in the Windy City, however, Rojas decided the best place to further his career was in his hometown of Los Angeles. Here, he worked at the Patina Restaurant Group’s namesake restaurant in its original location on Melrose Avenue. Under the tutelage of Executive Chefs Walter Manske and Eric Greenspan, Rojas quickly became the chef de partie and created fresh market menus featuring local ingredients and items from the wood-burning grill and rotisserie, all intricately plated.
In 2004, under the advisement of his mentors, Rojas decided he needed international culinary experience and moved to Lasarte, Spain, a small Basque town near San Sebastian, where he worked in a three-star Michelin-rated restaurant, Martin Berasategui. It was here that Rojas learned classic Basque and Spanish culinary styles, as well as avant-garde techniques such as molecular gastronomy. He learned to cook with different types of algae and liquid nitrogen, realizing that Spanish food was going to significantly impact the culinary world. After his contract with Martin Berasategui concluded, Rojas traveled extensively throughout Spain and France in order to further his culinary education, including a stage with three-star chef Pedro Subijana at Akelare in San Sebastian.
After six months in Europe, Rojas moved back to Los Angeles and incorporated the skills he learned abroad into the local food scene by once again working for Patina Restaurant as sous chef in the restaurant’s new location at the Walt Disney Concert Hall. In 2006 Rojas knew he was ready to helm his own kitchen, and was hired as executive chef at the landmark Saddle Peak Lodge, in Calabasas, CA, where he was able to demonstrate his culinary acumen by redesigning the menu and kitchen. His efforts and skills were rewarded in early 2008 when the restaurant received a Michelin Star, making him the youngest chef in Los Angeles to receive the coveted accolade
