“As a fellow Kapampangan, I am truly proud of Chef Jo Dijamco’s culinary talents and accomplishments. His extensive experience as a chef enables him to craft a delightful menu that resonates with many. Serving as the chef at the renowned [1917 Restaurant] in San Antonio Winery in Los Angeles, he is a source of pride for Filipinos!” – Fr. Rodel G.Balagtas, Pastor of Incarnation Church, Glendale
(L-R) Mike Zuniga, Don Sagarbarria, Prosy Delacruz, Chef Jo and Ana Burog at a 2022 dinner gathering. Photo by Enrique Delacruz
“Everything that Chef Jo prepared for us was beyond our expectations from the lamb chops to the bone marrow, from the salads to the desserts! Delicious, Michelin-star quality and definitely one of the best cuisines in my book! Paired with San Antonio Winery’s Proseco and wines, everything was perfect!” -Janet Susan Rodriguez Nepales, co-founder of Manila International Film Festival in Hollywood, CA
“I absolutely love Chef Jo, He’s amazing! Every time I take my family and friends to the winery, their tummies are genuinely happy.” – Jennifer Lorenzana, distributor of Stella Rosa wines in the Philippines.
Diosdado “Jo” Dijamco was the opening chef who trained line cooks to prepare the Italian dishes at La Bella PinseriaRomana in Glendale, California. He developed the restaurant’s opening salvo of menu offerings. The dishes convey memories of what we tasted in Italy, but with something extra. Could it be the morsels of love from Chef Jo and his line staff, recalling what I read about Chef Raymond Oliver in his book, “La Cuisine: Secrets of Modern French Cooking?”
Chef Jo’s meatballs
Like the fruit of great love
“Cooking is like the fruit of great love: a strong and slightly egotistical love on the part of the men, altruistic and sensitive on the part of the women. Be it one of the other, it is always present, demanding its share of gratitude and recognition. Isn’t this natural?” Chef Raymond Oliver wrote in his introduction to his book.
Chef Jo seems to have the same mindset, saying, “a line cook is an artist, but a chef manages the team and the business side. I never settle, I just want to be better every day. Each time I cook a dish, I feel like my mother, Aurora Dijamco, is standing beside me.”
When my goddaughter, Nicole David Yalong — a Kapampangan cook, a great singer, and mother of twins — came with me, she said: “My personal favorites among the dishes we were served were the citrus salad & the steak & potato paste. The citrus salad was refreshing and beautifully tangy that I couldn’t stop thinking about it after. It was my first time to have steak with bone marrow and veal sauce and it was a wonderful combination. He instructed our server to pace the serving of each dish.”
Cultural roots behind the ‘heart of his cooking’ from Pampanga, France, Italy, Spain and Southern CA
Jo was named after Diosdado Macapagal, a lawyer, poet and the 9th Philippine president. He was born to his mother, Aurora, his foundational teacher in cooking. His father is Marcelino, a businessman. His grandparents were businesspeople, pioneering in grocery stores and rice stores.
Jo recalls the excellent example of his mother, Aurora, whose daily dishes met high marks of satisfaction in his hometown, Pampanga. It is a province where talented cooks and housewives take pride in preparing high-quality meals. It is a province where generations upon generations have passed down their cooking styles and flavor profiles, preserving the flavor standards of their dishes: tocino, buro and sisig, among many.
“She was magic!” Unlike my cooking, her cooking was spot on, he said. “I can’t remember na sumablay ang pagluluto niya.” [I can’t remember her cooking missed the mark]! Each time I cook now, it feels like she still stands next to me.”
His father, Marcelino Dijamco, Jr, a businessman and distributor of Shellane (liquid propane gas) in Tarlac, Central Luzon, went to the U.S. in 1986.
“Like many businessmen who panicked following the assassination of Senator Benigno Aquino, Jr. and went abroad, my father did, too,” Jo shared.
The family emigrated, opening up an opportunity for Jo to obtain more knowledge in culinary arts at Orange Coast College.
It was experience and taking risks that honed his culinary skills. He joined Hilton hotel as a prep cook, and under the chef’s guidance, developed the “heart of cooking”, the foundation of making batch recipes: batch cooking of chicken, lobster, and veal stock. He acquired the skills of preparing demi-glace, a half-brown sauce and half-brown stock reduced in half.
Quick to learn, he was promoted to a line cook and a saucier, making small batches of sauces that when combined with other ingredients, became the signature entrée.
He methodically shared how to make a signature dish, Chilean sea bass with the sauce made from slowcooking of tomatoes (first blanched to remove skin and seeds), mixed with herbs, olive oil, and garlic, the triad of ingredients that make up the basic Provencal sauce, and baked at low temperature for three hours to form the fish stock and later finished with cream.
Chef Jo’s branzino with orange segments
He traveled to France, Italy and Spain to broaden his knowledge about these countries’ finest cooking methods. In the South of France, he was influenced by seafood and sauces found in Marseilles. In Spain, he was influenced by Basque cooking — the use of high-quality, seasonal ingredients from local farms and seafood caught in the Cantabrian Sea. In Italy, he learned how to make pesto, including homemade pasta, gnocchi and tomato sauces.
Jo prepared dishes on August 4, 2024 for a very dear friend, Carol Ojeda-Kimbrough, a discerning foodie and a retired professor of Asian American Studies at Cal State Fullerton, and her spouse, David Kimbrough who turned 65 years old, a water quality systems expert.
“I chose for summer birthday celebrations this year at the 1917 Wine Bar and Bistro because my family deserves the following: (1) the quality of the food prepared by Chef Jo Dijamco; and, (2) the professional and friendly staff of this place. I have had the pleasure of previously dining here when my good friend, my Biyaya (Grace) sister Prosy de la Cruz invited me.
Hamachi Crudo
We celebrated the birthdays of our 3 Leos – my husband David (65), son Andrei (50) and son Daniel (39). While waiting, San Antonio Winery Chairman Santo Riboli walked by and saw the kids waiting patiently. He asked them if they wanted sparkling grape juice, and they had a resounding “yes.” He got them each a glass.
Spaghetti or noodles are traditional dishes served in Filipino birthday celebrations to wish the celebrants’ long life. I tried it and I found the sauce (or “sugo”) to have that beautiful tangy taste of tomato without being overly acidic.
We had the Creekstone Farms Rib Eye with Bordelaise Sauce with bone marrow; steak was perfectly seasoned and cooked. We had sides of Yukon potato puree and the broccolini that provided a balance.
The catch of the day was the Seabass with basil sauce, potato puree, capers and had blueberry brioche pudding and tiramisu for dessert.
Chef Jo greeted our party, a surprise. He was unassuming and humble, and a superstar when you taste his creations.”
Jo described his goal to cook more Filipino dishes. “Our gift to the world is braising, a form of slow cooking of caldereta, kare-kare and me
He worked as sous chef of Chante Claire, which is no longer in business, before he got promoted at the age of 26. From there, he became executive chef, or chef de cuisine, at Pascal Restaurant in Newport Beach, California, where he had 12 staff under him.
“This is where Provencal cooking was refined for me,” he added.
Three years later, he became the executive chef to Constellation Concept with multiple restaurants consisting of California Café in Mission Viejo, a sushi bar, and Vugo which shut down during the 9/11 period of frozen travels.
He was the chef of Café D’Rey in Admiralty Way and the opening chef of The Sunset in Malibu and Zuma Beach where Japanese cooking has a twist of French cooking. He has also been fusing Thai cooking with Japanese influences at The Cannery in Newport Beach for seafood cooking.
When I asked Jo who he looks up to as masterful chefs, he named: Thomas Keller of French Laundry, a three-star Michelin restaurant; Charlie Trotter, who for 25 years, ran his namesake restaurant in Chicago; Daniel Boulud, who runs Michelin-starred Daniel, a pillar of French cooking in New York for 31 years; and Claude Tayag, a Filipino artist, restaurateur and writer, who operates Bale Dutung, serving the rich heritage of Kapampangan dishes in Angeles, Pampanga.
Jo has been the opening chef to successful restaurants: La Bella Pinseria Romana in Glendale, California and 1917 Restaurant in San Antonio Winery in Downtown Los Angeles.
Wild mushroom pizza and a citrus salad
AJPress photo
His daily theme: ”You never settle. Basta na lang is not. (Mediocrity is not to be). The crescent is there – find that – tatagos sa utak (seared in one’s memory), because of cooking, people will not forget you.”
Much like Mother Aurora who is kept alive by Chef Jo’s cooking daily.