It's time to party the José way!

Join me and some friends for unlimited food and drinks at my restaurants!

People of the world! (Did you know we have subscribers from 144 countries here??)

I am not sure where the time goes, but 30 years ago, when I was 24 years old, I took a job that would change my life. It was 1993 when Rob Wilder and Roberto Alvarez opened a restaurant called Jaleo with Executive Chef Ann Cashion in Washington DC. They hired a young Spaniard to run the kitchen by the name of ….well, it was me. I told you this story a few weeks ago, about how they were looking to hire a Spanish chef for Jaleo, and did a national search. I was working at the time in La Jolla, outside of San Diego, and had just been cooking at a very famous Spanish restaurant in New York called Eldorado Petit. Somehow they found me, brought me to DC for an interview, and then before I knew what was happening, I was moving to DC…not realizing that I would never leave!

Me as a much younger man in Jaleo many many years ago!

Two years later I took over the kitchen of Café Atlantico in Adams Morgan. This place had a Latin American menu and we captured the energy and fever of the culture with a dance party every night. I actually met my wife Patricia on that dance floor! Later that year, Café Atlantico moved from Adams Morgan to Penn Quarter, around the corner from Jaleo. And then more of our restaurants grew up in the neighborhood. We opened Zaytinya in Penn Quarter in 2002, and then in in 2003 we created minibar, a six-seat avant-garde tasting menu on the second floor of Café Atlantico. In 2007, Oyamel moved from Crystal City to Penn Quarter, and then we added one more to the neighborhood in 2015, when we opened China Chilcano. Now we have a little family of restaurants all in a few blocks of each other, which makes it feel like a small town where we see the same faces…friends and families that grow up with us, seeing our regulars get married, have kids, celebrate birthdays, anniversaries, graduations…all those very special moments where you want to bring all the people you love together around the table.

Over the years since we first opened, the menu at Jaleo has changed a lot, but it has also stayed the same…we have about a half a dozen classics that are still on the menu. Can you guess which ones? Well yeah, of course it’s the dishes you’ve tried before (and maybe even made before!) like gazpacho, patatas bravas, gambas al ajillo, and pan con tomate…but maybe you haven’t had a chance to try the endives with goat cheese, oranges, and almonds; the espinacas a la catalana, the butifarra con mongetes (the most amazing sausage and beans), and lomo de buey con piquillos confitados—steak with confit piquillo peppers…!  (Hey—if you want any of these recipes, let me know in the comments and I’ll see what we can do!)

Another thing that has also stayed the same…a lot of our staff. I wrote about Elmer, Maria, Secundino, and Chef Ramon, who have more than a century of experience at Jaleo between them. But there are so many more people who have stayed with us from the start. I found this out the other day that more than 20 percent of Jaleo DC employees have been at Jaleo for more than 10 years and fifteen percent have been there for more than 15. We have five employees of the 151 person team that have been at Jaleo for more than 20 years! That’s family!

Chef Ramon and Maria! Maria has been around since almost the very beginning.

So, my friends, if you are in DC (or maybe you want an excuse to come to DC?) on June 27th, I would love if you can join me, my family, and my friends in celebrating three decades of Jaleo with a party done the José way. It will be a global tapas crawl to celebrate the dishes, drinks, and music I love from around the world. It’s going to be an epic food tour with unlimited food, drinks, and music at Jaleo, Oyamel, China Chilcano, and Zaytinya! Think: stop for some jamón and sherry here, then a taco and margarita there, then off back across the street for some Peruvian anticuchos and a pisco sour, then finish off with grilled lamb and glass of wine! And then do it all over again, if you want (and if you can eat and drink fast enough…!)

Oh, and I’m being joined by three of my close chef friends from Spain: Albert Raurich of Dos Palillos, Carles Abellán of Tapas24, and Juanjo Lopez, of La Tasquita de Enfrente, three of the most amazing chefs in the country right now. Albert was the head chef at elBulli before starting his own restaurants with his wife Tamae Imachi, who was the sommelier at elBulli—so you know he’s an incredible chef. Carles was also at elBulli, and now runs a number of tapas bars that do both traditional dishes and very modern ones, an amazing combination that you can’t find anywhere else in the world. And Juanjo, he’s a legend, cooking some of the most classic dishes of Madrid, protecting the legacies of our nation. 
If you see me, Albert, Carles, or Juanjo, say hey (or probably you should say hola!)!

I’ll be there…will you?