Today we’d like to introduce you to Christina Pancheri.
Christina, please share your story with us. How did you get to where you are today?
I went to college at CSUSM for Psychology, earned a Bachelors Degree and did not know which road I wanted to take after graduation. I left California and went to South Dakota to live with my brother, get a job, and figure out my next step in my career path. While I was there, I was cooking a lot and found a true passion for the craft. I felt this could be a career choice and started looking into culinary school programs. One of the programs that interested me was back home in San Diego, CA. I was offered a chance to compete in a scholarship competition, which I ended up winning. This win turned out to be a sign for me, that this path is the right path and I needed to pursue it.
While I was in culinary school, I held a full-time job in retail but wanted to get my foot in the door with the culinary industry. Six months into the culinary program, I landed a restaurant job as a pantry cook in Little Italy at La Villa when I was 24. Once I was in, I put my head down, worked hard, and climbed the ranks. My work ethic was strong enough and noticed by other culinary professionals, that I was offered another job with another restaurant called Kitchen 4140. I completed my culinary program while I was at Kitchen 4140 and soon climbed up the ranks to Chef De Cuisine.
At 26 years old, I pursued an Executive Chef job at Tavern at the Beach in Pacific Beach with the Verant Group. I did a tasting for the owners and management team and was offered the job. I stayed at the Tavern, learned and grew with the bar-restaurant. It was a great first Executive Chef job for me, but I felt I reached my limit in that type of culinary establishment, so just shy of two years with the bar-restaurant, I decided to take a trip to Austin Texas to check out the culinary scene in a different state.
I stayed in Austin, for a couple of months, then decided to return to San Diego. When I came back to San Diego, I was looking for an Executive Chef job. The now Grind and Prosper Hospitality was opening up a bar-restaurant in Mission Beach called Miss B’s Coconut Club. This was a small restaurant with a tiny kitchen but felt very homey and the vibe of the restaurant seemed like a perfect fit for me at this time in my career. I was offered the Executive Chef position and started here in March 2016. This was a fun restaurant to work in, right next to the beach, with fun tiki Caribbean style cocktails and delicious Caribbean inspired food. I stayed at Miss B’s Coconut Club until June of 2017 when Grind and Prosper opened up Park101 in Carlsbad.
I helped open up Park101 in Carlsbad, went back and forth to Miss B’s to help out, then was offered to take over as the Executive Chef of Park101 in October 2017. This restaurant was a fun concept with BBQ and fast-casual dining. The kitchen is completely exposed to the customers and having the customer to cook interaction was a crazy experience and concept to handle. This restaurant was so much fun to work in and I learned and grew a vast amount as a chef.
In December 2018, I was sought out by the Executive Chef of Vintana Wine & Dine, Cohn Restaurant Group to be an Executive Sous Chef. At this time in my career, it felt that moving to a more well-renowned restaurant group to learn and grow even more would be a great opportunity for me to pursue. I started as the Executive Sous Chef on Jan 2, 2019. Right away this was the biggest kitchen I have ever worked in, so having this large of a culinary team was thrilling for me. I caught on immediately and learned the ropes of running this kitchen. In June 2019, I was offered the Executive Chef position of Vintana Wine and Dine. This was the job I wanted and I took it immediately. This company is a restaurant company that I can grow and learn so much from. This opportunity was a huge game-changer in my career as a chef in San Diego. I am continuously learning and evolving every day, and I cannot wait to see what happens next!
Great, so let’s dig a little deeper into the story – has it been an easy path overall and if not, what were the challenges you’ve had to overcome?
The road in culinary as a female has its struggles. Being a female in a male-dominated industry makes you tough. If you are not tough, you will not survive. You have to be just as good or better than the person next to you. Ideally, you want to be the best of the best in the line of line cooks. Put your head down, learn from those around you, take what you like or don’t like and build your own way of what works for you. Be professional at all times, but work twice as hard every day to prove that you can be the best, and that hard work will be noticed. Your hard work will be seen, and you will achieve your dreams.
What should we know about Cohn Restaurant Group? What do you do best? What sets you apart from the competition?
As the Executive Chef, I am in charge of where we purchase our products from, how the product is being butchered/ prepped, how we are utilizing that prepped product in recipes or pickups for dishes for service. The best part is obviously the creative part by creating dishes, new menu items, and the ever so fun tasting dinners we put on once a month. Being the Executive Chef, I deal with the administrative side of the food for the restaurant; food cost, purchase costs, labor costs, tracking of costs, scheduling, hiring, profits, loses, etc.
What I would like to be known for is playing with very different flavor profiles and putting them together by connecting them through other flavors in a dish to make them work together.
What I am most proud of is how my hard work each and every day, and how that work has been recognized and has helped me climb higher to achieve more in the culinary industry.
What sets me apart from others is that I value my entire team, each and every individual, as a family. I give every member of my staff support and treat them with respect. I push them to grow and be creative by allowing them to come up with ideas of their own and implement those ideas as specials for the day. The energy in my kitchen is positive and full of individuals that enjoy being at work and push through as a team to get through the stressful demanding services.
For good reason, society often focuses more on the problems rather than the opportunities that exist, because the problems need to be solved. However, we’d probably also benefit from looking for and recognizing the opportunities that women are better positioned to capitalize on. Have you discovered such opportunities?
I personally value females in the culinary field. I feel the females have more natural strength when it comes to the cleanliness, orderliness, and details of the kitchen.
Contact Info:
- Address: 1205 Auto Park Way, Escondido, CA
- Website: https://www.cohnrestaurants.com/vintana
- Phone: 760-745-7777
- Email: christina@dinevintana.com
- Instagram: chefxtinapancheri
Image Credit:
Hannah Walker, Chef Deborah Scott
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