[Executive Chef Martine Venegas
Chef Martine Venegas has been with Donovan’s from day one—no small feat for a chef that serves an average of 300 meals a day. Especially when these are no ordinary meals, but some of the best quality steaks and seafood you can find in San Diego.
It is not surprising that quality was the reason Venegas was attracted to Donovan’s ten years ago. He was thrilled at the prospect of working with owners who were committed to serving “the best of the best,” and who were “not afraid to invest in an upscale operation.”
When he was younger, Venegas never imagined himself in the kitchen. He insists he ended up in the culinary world by accident, when he was looking for a job and happened to find one doing prep work in a kitchen. “That’s all I was doing, I was looking for a job,” he explains. Yet after a while, he started to like the work, and started spending a lot of time in the kitchen. He would come to work early and leave late just to be able to watch the chefs. He would ask lots of questions and try to learn.
Prior to accepting the position at Donovan’s, Venegas spent ten years working for the Rancho Bernardo Inn. He credits his time there as teaching him much of what he knows today. He learned on the job, rotating from station to station within the hotel. He worked in the hotel’s French restaurant, and for the banquet team. The Inn also offered classes from different celebrity chefs, and Venegas took many of them.
The transition from the Rancho Bernardo Inn to Donovan’s was smooth for Venegas, although once the restaurant got going, it was a different scene. There were a few challenges, he explains, but then adds, “I always welcome a challenge.”
The biggest challenge at Donovan’s is timing. The evenings are intense—the restaurant may be open for five hours, but everything happens within a two-hour window. “Everything goes out between about 6:45 and 9:00,” he says. “It’s all about having good staff, having good people.” Venegas manages a team of 24, and spends time each day motivating his team for the busy night ahead.
His secret? Quality of ingredients. “We don’t do the most elaborate presentations, but we strive for quality, for consistency,” he says. The kitchen uses only USDA Prime beef, only Australian cold water lobster, only Gulf shrimp #1, white—“the best shrimp there are.”
Venegas’s favorite dishes to work with are appetizers. He likes the idea of getting a meal started for guests, for serving something that will get them settled in to their meal. The appetizers at Donovan’s are a bit more creative than other dishes on the menu, and Venegas has personally influenced or created all of Donovan’s appetizer recipes. In the beginning, Donovan’s owners came to him with concepts—they would tell him they wanted Donovan’s to serve the best crab cakes—and Venegas would test recipe after recipe, eventually creating his own recipe for Donovan’s version of the dish.
The most rewarding part of the job for Venegas is “a smooth night. When you know you’ve just made someone’s special occasion a great one.” It’s a reward he sees quite frequently.
As for his own special occasions, he chooses to spend them with his family. “”I stay away from the crowds,” he explains, ‘’away from the popular restaurants.” When he cooks at home, his favorite dishes to play with are pastas and Italian food. But not “red tomato sauce,” he cautions—he likes to make more complex Italian sauces—pesto is a favorite.
When he’s not cooking or spending time with his family—he and his wife have a two-year old child—he is “sports, all the way around.” “I love to play baseball, and football too,” he explains. “Up until about two to three years ago, I played on an adult league in North County. We had a team together at Donovans. We took it all the way to the championships,” he boasts.
As for his favorite steak, he’ll take a New York, cooked medium rare to medium.
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Review By Lauren Duffy
SanDiegoRestaurants.com
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