Alex Pailles brings his culinary curiosity and serious restaurant chops to The Village.
La Valencia Hotel has a new Executive Chef: Alex Pailles has taken the lead of the culinary team at the property, including the Mediterranean Room, the Med Patio, and La Sala lobby bar.
Pailles brings with him years of global and local experience, mostly recently sharpening his skills at The Marine Room.
“I’m happy to stay local,” Pailles said of continuing his La Jolla tradition, adding he loves La Jolla, La Valencia’s historic property and its proximity to the ocean.
“Seeing the potential that it has just excites me,” he said.
That potential means leaning on his fine dining experience, which includes working at the Michelin-starred Xerta Restaurant in Barcelona, Spain, to elevate “the night experience” at La Valencia, Pailles said.
Pailles is also working to ensure “all the flavors [from dinner] follow in all aspects,” meaning breakfasts, brunches and lunches “have just a little bit more, something to kind of draw people back,” he said.
Pailles’s approach follows his philosophy that “it’s all about staying curious and seeing what that new thing is that we can add to our arsenal,” he said. “It’s all about the many techniques [to] bring out certain things.
La Valencia’s storied Mediterranean cuisine will benefit from this method, Pailles said, using hints of the Basque culture, and infusions of Spanish and Italian dishes and challenging him “to make them brighter, make them more seasonal.”
And “through these moments, I’m always communicating with my staff,” he said, making sure every element is something the guests will enjoy.
“I never want to put something out that I’m the only one tasting,” Pailles said. “I’m not cooking for myself.”
Pailles grew up a native San Diegan with culinary roots in Mexico City – his mother a professional pastry chef herself – but didn’t originally choose to be a chef, first exploring engineering.
“I was a mechanical engineering major,” he said, noting that his work in the kitchen is “engineering in a different manner. … it’s applying the science behind building flavor profiles, but also the mathematics and geometry in terms of what goes where.”
Pailles considers himself “more hands-on when it comes to articulating what goes on a plate and how it goes on the plate,” he said, finding the balance between simply laying food down as one does at home and “using negative space to draw attention and making things look visually aesthetically pleasing.”
“We want to make sure that everything … has its own luxury behind it,” he said.
And the quality of what’s plated will always start at the source, Pailles said, adding he’d like to begin dry aging in-house and is always “passionate about trying to stay as sustainable as possible” with seafood.
“In the end, it’s about educating those who are eating your own food,” he said.
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