It's in season.
Farmers markets, fresh catch, whatever is best right now. He cooks the way he learned in his mother's garden.
In the kitchen
Chef José Manuel Valines
He started cooking at fourteen in a hotel kitchen in Puerto Rico and stayed long after his shifts ended because he couldn't get enough of it. Thirty years later, he's cooking for Cocoa, Rockledge, Merritt Island, Titusville, Melbourne, and the Space Coast.
Chef José · Cocoa VillageThe story
Thirty years, seven kitchens, one idea.
José grew up in Puerto Rico in a house where something was always growing. Tomatoes, peppers, cucumbers in his mother's garden while other kids were heading to the beach. That's where he learned that food starts with what's fresh and in season, and he's never cooked any other way.
At fourteen he talked his way into a hotel kitchen in San Juan and found his first mentor in Chef Augusto Schreiner, a classically trained Austrian who ran Augusto's, one of the city's few fine-dining rooms. From there, the Culinary Institute of America in Hyde Park, class of 2001, where he studied Italian cooking under Gianni Scappin. Then the kitchen of Lutèce, one of the most respected restaurants in American history, and the Italian kitchens of New York's Hudson Valley.
Miami came next. José ran the kitchen at a 140-seat restaurant in Wynwood before Wynwood was Wynwood, working side by side with a crew of twelve and buying from the farmers and fishermen he'd driven south to be near. After that, the steakhouse at Vermont's Equinox Resort, and then two and a half years with Eurest as executive chef for one of the Space Coast's largest employers, where he fed hundreds of people a day.
Every one of those kitchens taught him something. A Chef's Touch is where all of it goes on one menu.
Where he's cooked
The résumé, in order.
- San Juan, Puerto Rico
Started at fourteen; trained under Chef Augusto Schreiner at Augusto's.
- Hyde Park, New York
Culinary Institute of America, class of 2001. Italian cuisine under Gianni Scappin.
- New York City
Lutèce, the legendary French restaurant, before it closed in 2003.
- Hudson Valley
Several years in the region's Italian kitchens, including Rhinebeck.
- Miami
Executive chef of a 140-seat restaurant in Wynwood in the neighborhood's early days.
- Manchester, Vermont
Ran the steakhouse at the Equinox Resort: whole-animal butchery, Wagyu straight from the farm.
- The Space Coast
Executive chef with Eurest for one of the area's largest employers, then A Chef's Touch.
"We want to be in people's homes. That's where we make the difference."Chef José Manuel Valines
How he cooks
Three things you'll notice.
A vegetarian option is not a salad.
Dietary needs are a cooking problem, not a checkbox. A stuffed squash with seven-grain pilaf does the work of the meat. Vegan, vegetarian, and gluten-free guests eat as well as everyone else.
He'll show you how.
Cook in someone's kitchen long enough and you start teaching. If he's in your home, expect to pick up a trick or two with your own equipment. It comes with the catering.
What he makes
Classical Italian. Caribbean. Asian. Classic Americana.
Fresh pasta, bao and steamed buns, American-Chinese done properly, and the Puerto Rican flavor that runs through all of it. His words: the best plain Jane mashed potatoes you've ever had.