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Chef Paco
By Kathleen Furore
On the June 28, 2022 episode of The Food Network’s Chopped Desperately Seeking Sous Chef, Chef Francisco “Paco” Moran took the stage with three other chefs in the finale that would determine who would win the $10,000 grand prize and a job as a sous chef for one of the show’s judges.
When the votes were tallied, Chef Paco emerged the Chopped Champion — an exciting turn in a culinary career that has taken him from a freelance gig plating food at age 18 to his current position as executive chef at three Los Angeles area restaurants that honor this El Salvador native’s Latin roots: LA Cha Cha Chá, Mariscos Za Za Zá and Loreto.
Here, Chef Paco shares the story of his culinary journey with el Restaurante readers.
1. How did you get your first job in the restaurant industry?
I was midway through Le Cordon Bleu culinary school in Pasadena when I started working with a third-party agency that contracted out kitchen staff and cooks like freelancers. I got a gig helping plate for an event at Wolfgang Puck at Sony Studios. One of their dishwashers walked out so they offered me a job doing that. Two weeks in, one of their cooks walked out and that’s how I landed my first job as a cook. Then, right after culinary school, I started working for Patina Restaurant Group and was there for 13 years.
2. How did you end up on Chopped?
I was working at LA Cha Cha Chá at the time. It was about six months into the opening of that restaurant, and it was one of the few restaurants in LA that was open during the pandemic. Al fresco dining was the only way to dine safely, and we were fortunate because most of our seating was outside. We got a lot of media attention during this time, and I think this got the producers’ attention. I got email messages to be on the show that I thought were just spam. They also reached out to me on Instagram and Facebook. I finally looked into it more closely and it seemed like a legit offer.
3. Dessert was the last dish you had to make during the Chopped finale. What recipe did you prepare that led you to your first-place finish?
Paco Moran Tostada a la Jaquin
Pastry is not my strong suit, but I knew that if I ever made it all the way to the end, there was one dessert recipe I could make — panna cotta. It was one of the first recipes that I learned how to do when I was 18 or 19 years old. I was just like, ‘If I ever get this far, I guess I could make a version of panna cotta with whatever’s in the box.’ Lucky for me, it worked out because when you make certain things for such a long time, you memorize measurements. I was like, ‘I don’t even need a scale or the recipe’ — I could do it by heart because I’ve been doing it for over 15 years.
4. You’re now executive chef at three Latin inspired restaurants. Has it always been your goal to focus on what you remember eating growing up in Watts with parents who were from El Salvador?
Most dishes that I cook now are things that I love to eat on a daily basis, or that I wish I could eat on a daily basis. The menus at Mariscos and Loreto are inspired by food that I grew up with and that does kind of bring everything full circle.
When I started in the industry, I learned French cooking because of the culinary school I went to and the restaurants that I worked in. Some of my mentors had a German background. And then when I worked at the flagship restaurant at the Walt Disney Concert Hall, we leaned Asian/Japanese because we were working a lot with All Nippon Airways. Lately, I find myself lately wanting to revisit these cuisines and incorporate them into what I cook now.
5. I read that your methods represent the next generation of executive chefs who are running things differently in the back of house. What are you doing differently from what traditionally has been done back-of-house?
Times have changed a lot since I was a young cook. I’ve worked alongside chefs who keep their kitchens super quiet and the chefs really ran everything. The ‘chef does everything’ idea is outdated — that’s not the reality. The chef has a whole team behind them. I’ve leaned more into a collaborative and creative process. Music is an important aspect. We use a streaming system made for business called Soundtrack Your Brand that makes curating and programming playlists super easy. I like for the sous chefs to select the music for prep time because, like I said, it’s all a collaborative process — and it’s not just food at the end of the day, right? It’s also a vibe and the sous chefs should get an opportunity to set the tone for the restaurant.
Kathleen Furore is the editor of el Restaurante.