Chef Danielle Duran Zecca

California-born Chef Danielle , knew from a young age that she wanted to be a chef. She was raised in an environment emphasizing the rich variety of Mexican food. After graduation from high school, she attended California’s Le Cordon Bleu School of Culinary Arts where she focused on classic French cuisine and graduated with honors.

After working with some of the best California chefs, including Walter Manzke, Neal Fraser, and Sang Yoon, Chef Danielle moved to New York City, where she worked at Le Bernardin, followed by the Modern, where she was quickly promoted to sous chef. While at the Modern, she was offered the opportunity to be the Chef de Cuisine at Vespa, a restaurant on New York City’s upper east side, where under her leadership and creativity, Vespa was recognized as the best neighborhood restaurant. Given an opportunity she couldn’t refuse, Chef Danielle left Vespa to be Sous Chef at the highly acclaimed Le Coucou, the recipient of the James Beard Award for Best New Restaurant in 2017.

While cooking in New York, Chef Danielle competed in two Food Network cooking shows: “Kitchen Casino” in which she took first place and “Beat Bobby Flay” where she was inches away from “Slaying the Flay”.

Her style of cooking is “MexItalian” which subtly combines the Mexican food influences of her heritage, with her Italian husband’s heritage. They created a pop up called Amiga Amore, which was just featured at the James Beard House this past February.

Chef Danielle is now back home and more eager than ever to cook the food that comforts her, combining her appreciation for organic and sustainable ingredients with the technique and expertise she has learned along the way. She is currently catering at her own company “ChefDDZ Catering” while running her hot sauce company El Chorro, and hosting with her husband the pop up Amiga Amore in LA, while they build there first brick and mortar in Highland Park. Over the past two years Amiga Amore has achieved many accolades including write ups in LA times , Eater LA, Infatuation LA, Thrillist , The Beet, Pop Sugar, What Now, and most recently Forbes.

Chef Danielle’s Pop up will showcase her unique cuisine, “MexItalian” which combines exceptional quality ingredients, many made from scratch, with Italian and Mexican influences. Come hungry and Expect to be amazed!

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