Discover Chef Antonia Lofaso: Her Career and Best Recipes

Antonia Lofaso is an American chef who, among others, has featured on the Top Chef, Chopped, Cutthroat Kitchen, and Restaurant Startup reality TV shows. In Los Angeles, California, she owns the Black Market Liquor Store, Scopa Italian Origin, and DAMA restaurants. 

The cuisine of Chef Antonia Lofaso is an invitation to investigate the depths of her interior world. Her food elicits a curiosity that grew out of stepping beyond the suburbs of Long Island and into Los Angeles’ culturally diverse landscape. 

Her conviction that cavatelli and carnitas can co-exist effortlessly on the same menu conveys a continually changing sensibility. But what persists in all her dishes is a single view of the future that recalls the past longingly. Check out more of Chef Antonia in this blog! 

Where It All Began 

Lofaso launched Scopa-Italian Roots in 2013, which was instantly well-received, influenced by her Italian-American heritage. Lofaso’s version of old-school Italian is hailed as one of Los Angeles’ most convincing restaurants for Italian cuisine. 

Patrons define Scopa as an essential staple of the neighborhood where Lofaso regularly serves welcoming, authentic, and undeniably satisfying food.

Where She Studied

Lofaso studied and absorbed advanced techniques from culinary legends, but she was not afraid to take exceptional risks to honor her instincts. 

At Wolfgang Puck’s Spago, she rose rapidly through the ranks and went on to other numerous high-profile Los Angeles kitchens while working closely with several high-profile celebrities.

A graduate of the French Culinary Academy, Antonia has participated in several reality food contests in front of and behind the camera. Still, she is actually the executive chef at the Black Market Liquor Bar in Los Angeles. 

She is a single mother and the author of a cookbook, The Cookbook of The Busy Mom: 100 Simple, Tasty, Home-Cooked Meals Recipes.

Most Famous Recipes

Rice Balls with Bolognese Sauce, Peas, Mozzarella and Parmesan

This dish can be finished in 2 hours, 30 minutes and is suitable for four to six servings. This delicious meal is best for lunch and dinner. Evident from its name, this dish is divided into four: creating the meat sauce, tomato sauce, breadcrumb mixture, and Arborio Rice Balls.  

On each plate, spoon the tomato sauce over the rim after making the mixtures. In the middle of the dish, put a rice ball. Top with Parmesan and parsley, freshly grated. Click here to see the full recipe. 

Braised Oxtail Burger

This recipe can be completed in 3 hours, 35 minutes and is suitable for three servings. To successfully do this dish, you need to have a pressure cooker, an immersion blender. Serve this during snack time or dinner. 

Back in the day, the oxtail was the tail of an ox in particular. Today, it could be any cattle’s tail. What used to be considered a throwaway cut of meat, ranging from $4 to $10 per pound, is now one of the most expensive, and half of its weight is bone.

Click here to see the full recipe. 

Achiote Shrimp Nachos

This appetizer is an easy-to-make recipe that you can complete for only 40 minutes. This is suitable for up to four servings. 

Achiote Shimp Nachos combines seafood and crispiness of the nachos mixed together with achiote paste, whole corn tortillas, avocado, onion, jalapeno, coriander, and cumin. 

Click here to get started. 

Cookbooks & Other Ventures

Lofaso joined Penguin in 2012 to publish The Busy Mom’s Cookbook: 100 Recipes for Quick, Delicious, Home-cooked Meals, which also shows the story of the difficulties she overcame while studying at the elite French Culinary Institute and raising her daughter, Xea, at the same time. 

Lofaso maintains that from the heart of the kitchen comes the push behind all her successes, and it is from this vein, she continues to have a firm finger on the pulse. 

She is revolutionizing her industry’s aesthetics with her Chefletics brand, redesigning chef wear for style and functionality. 

Conclusion

Lofaso has evaluated her career performance through her inherent ability to understand her audience while remaining true to her own personality. 

Her unforgettable performance on Top Chef: Chicago and Top Chef: All-Stars praised her individuality outside the kitchen, and as a judge on CNBC’s Restaurant Startup, her talents continue to shine in front of the camera, and recurring roles on Cutthroat Kitchen, Man vs. Girl, and ABC’s Real O’neals, of The Food Network.