Asian Journal- The Filipino-American Community Newspaper

A CERTIFIED Executive Chef, culinary educator, television personality, consultant and restaurateur to America’s finest city, Chef Larry Banares’ list of achievements is not a short one. He is also a familiar face to television viewers, as he appears twice a week in San Diego’s local channels with his popular cooking segments and on cable with Chef’s Larry Cuisine, his half-hour cooking show. A true "culinary ambassador," Chef Larry is heard around the world on his popular radio program, The Chef Larry Show on World Talk Radio and he writes a food column for the Asian Reader.

Chef Larry relates his experiences with a chef father and growing up with Filipino food and culture. In an interview by Sue Lin of Asia Food, he said, "My father Dedios is a chef. As a teenager, I needed some work and asked him for a job."

But he hated working for his father, he said, describing the tense and stressful environment of a professional kitchen. "I made a lot of mistakes and he was very quick to single me out," he said and added, "No matter what I was doing, no matter how good it was, it would never quite be good enough."

However, everything changed when he discovered what his father could do in one catering event—carving melons and squash into flowers and birds. This, he said, awakened his interest in the artistic side of food. From then on, his relationship with father improved, and he was able to get an informal apprenticeship with him.

Chef Larry is highly recognized for his culinary accomplishments, especially when he was selected to be a member of the 1992, 1996 and 1992 USA Culinary Teams, winning three gold medals and a special "cloverleaf" award at the world’s most prestigious cooking competition, the "Culinary Olympics."

Chefs on the US team were often European, he said. But he would rather think that he was selected because he is an excellent chef, rather than because of his being Filipino. But he does agree that his heritage might have brought something more to the table, by integrating Asian influences in the team’s food style.