Roberto Cortez – Hatchi Dinner

Back in July, I received an email from chef Roberto Cortez, asking if I would be attending his “one night only” Hatchi dinner at BreadBar. He wrote: “I’ve been reading your blog for a while now and always enjoy your writing and your palate appreciation”. Which made me laugh because I took it as, “you really like to EAT” (and of course it’s true)!

I hadn’t yet been to one of BreadBar’s special dinner events, but planned to attend as many as I possibly could.

Since then, I’ve been to three (Voltaggio being the first), and it’s just a really comfortable and inexpensive way to try out a chef’s new menu.

If you’re unfamiliar with Hatchi, BreadBar describes it as a “unique venture featuring a different guest chef every month preparing an original, one-night-only suite of eight plates, including six ’savory’ dishes and two ’sweet’ creations”. Hatchi means number eight in Japanese: 8 Plates offered at $8 each.

Chef Roberto Cortez is known as the “Boutique Private Chef”, and on his blog he writes, “I have been a Private Chef for 14 years and currently reside in Santa Barbara, California. I have had the honor of being the Personal Chef to Microsoft’s Paul Allen, Antonio Banderas, Melanie Griffith and Eddie Murphy, just to name a few.”

Chef Cortez trained at Ecole Lenotre and Ecole de Escoffier (both in France) and also studied in Italy, Canada, Switzerland, Czech Republic and Poland. His twitter bio reads “Private Chef seeking uncommon relationships between food, design and sensory emotions”, and that pretty much sums up the delicious evening we had at BreadBar.

Chef Roberto Cortez, Hatchi Dinner
Unfamilar Conflict

White Asparagus Cappucino: grapefruit, mint, ginger ravioli