From Jávea to Livermore: how L Campo came to be
The first El Campo was built on a hillside above Jávea in 2008 and never opened its doors. Seventeen years later the same idea opened on First Street. This is how.
In 2008 I was living in Germany and looking for the next thing. An agency put me together with Franz Soengerath, who had property in Spain and the ambition to run a restaurant on it. He asked whether I wanted to join him. I did.
The restaurant sat on a hillside above Jávea, Xàbia in the local Valencian, on the Costa Blanca. The parcel was there. The walls went up. And over the course of eight months it all fell apart, the way projects do when the money behind them disappears. The doors never opened.
What Spain taught me while the walls went up
It was my first time in Spain, and while the building stalled I did what a cook does: I ate. I learned how the Spanish eat, when they eat, and why they eat what they eat, and I fell in love with it. The focus on fish. The rhythm of a meal that starts with tapas, moves to a steak for the table, and ends with churros, or with a crema catalana, which I still do not have on the menu.
The restaurant never served a paying guest, but I sourced everything locally and cooked for the people who would have been its patrons: friends, neighbours, acquaintances. Those months were worth more than most years. Valencia is the birthplace of paella, and Valencian rice grows in the fields around the Albufera. It is the only rice we use at L Campo. Those are fond memories, and they did not fade.
Why not
I never expected another attempt. When the opportunity came to develop the concept further and open it in Livermore, California, I took the chance and said yes. Why not? Livermore had no Spanish restaurant. CJ was eager, I was eager, and El Campo came back to life as L Campo.
It is not a copy of the restaurant on the hill. I have moved away from the original to meet what people here expect and what they are comfortable eating. But the focus has not moved: Valencia, its region and its ingredients, which you can read straight off the menu, and above all in the paella, which has an entry of its own.
What L Campo is
L Campo does its best to stay true to the philosophy and the spirit of Valencian cooking. There is a sprinkle of me in it as well: thirty-four years in kitchens, an insistence on operational efficiency and flawless processes, and a guest experience I would want for myself. Those things are not separate from the food. They are how the food arrives at your table the way it left the pan.
The restaurant that waited seventeen years is open Tuesday to Sunday. Come and eat.