Following nine months of steady accolades and critical raves, Baco Mercat scores the number-nine spot on Bon Appetit’s list of top-ten “hot” restaurants. Andrew Knowlton calls the varied iterations of chef Josef Centeno’s titular invention “spectacular additions to the ever-growing canon of the American sandwich,” and deems L.A. “lucky” to have his globally-influenced dishes in a neighborhood restaurant. Not only that, but it turns out the chef is killing it when it comes to stacking his cash.
Writer Hugh Garvey breaks down the day-to-day at Baco, noting that the chef saves loot by washing the restaurants 20-foot windows by himself (and doing a bang-up, “streak free” job at that), designing the place himself and handling his own media outreach, projecting that the restaurant is on now track to make one-million more this year than Centeno first projected. He also explains that his embrace of Downtown came with an ideal rent, telling the magazine, “the rent was so good that I thought, Worst-case scenario, if all I can do is a hot plate, paper cups, and a bottle of tequila, that’s what I’ll do.” [BA]
