At the Dream Inn's Jack O'Neill Restaurant & Lounge, that spirit of innovation and respect for the ocean carries into the kitchen. Executive Chef Gus Trejo builds the menu on local and sustainable practices, creating dishes that honor both the coast and community Jack helped define.
"What we really try to do, especially in the culinary side, is work with our entire community," Trejo said. "Really support the people that put in a lot of effort into how they grow their food, that protect their watershed, that really care about the environment that we're in."
Trejo embraces the unpredictability of working directly with small suppliers. "Our seafood gets caught out on the bay, it gets brought in on the back of a pickup truck," he said. "By the time the guest gets the food, I know exactly how many hands it's been through."
Griffin Guess of Gracie Fish is one of those hands that bring in seafood, caught personally by him on his small boat on the Pacific Ocean. He described his first encounter with Chef Trejo as a four-hour-long phone conversation that was a "deep dive" on fishing and restaurant practices. "I was really blown away by what his expectations were," Guess said.
On land, Trejo has forged a close relationship with Rob James, owner of Corvus Farm in Pescadero, who provides pasture-raised eggs. James recalled the moment Trejo made him see his own product differently: "Gus kept using a definite article. He said, I'm looking for the egg, not an egg. And he kept referring, he's like, I want the Corvus egg. Like it was some world-famous thing. I had never been made to feel like a rock star over an egg."
Trejo's philosophy is rooted in his upbringing, split between California and summers on his grandparents' ranch in Portugal, where all the food had to be sourced from the land. "I remember at that young age, I can still taste how food is supposed to taste... It has gotten to the point where I feel like we need to bring it back."
Trejo believes sourcing locally makes not just a great meal, but a great community. "It just tastes better, feels better, and I'm really proud the team has come together and embraced that." The team that Trejo built will continue his work at Jack O'Neill's Restaurant and Lounge, as he takes the helm of Lucia Restaurant & Bar (at Carmel Valley's Bernardus Lodge) in August.
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