Ever wondered what actually sits in a professional chef's cupboard at home? Sunset asked a handful of West Coast chefs to open theirs up, and the answers skip the usual olive oil and canned beans in favour of six odds-and-ends that punch well above their price.
Japanese pantry items feature heavily. Mika Paredes, chef at Portland's L'Échelle, keeps togarashi — a blend of chillies, ground ginger and poppy seeds — on hand to wake up everything from winter udon to a soft-boiled egg on a Sunday morning. She also swears by La Yu chilli oil, praising its press-tab dropper bottle, and suggests S&B Umami Topping Crunchy Garlic for anyone who can't track down togarashi locally. Over in Palo Alto, Nik Neuwirt of Kappo calls nori the taste of sea air; beyond ramen, he makes handrolls, sushi bakes and powders it as an all-purpose umami booster.
Canned goods get a rebrand too. Spencer Horovitz, who is opening the California-Jewish restaurant Hadeam in San Francisco in 2027, names canned dolmades — the Athena brand in particular — as a childhood favourite that's grown up with him: broiled with thick feta, roasted alongside a salmon tray-bake, or dropped into simmering tomato sauce. Laura Ozyilmaz, executive chef at Maria Isabel, champions blue corn masa harina for its nixtamalized corn flavour, and Yesenia Castañon of Jou Jou and Lazy Bear points out it's about as low-effort as pantry cooking gets: add water, press, cook, taco.
The quieter heroes are verjus — an unfermented grape juice Kari Shaughnessy of Hayward in Carlton, Oregon uses in dressings, pasta and even dessert syrups, calling it a sweeter, gentler stand-in for vinegar or stock — and preserved lemons, which Paredes chops into vinaigrettes, stirs through beans and vegetables, and even muddles into tonic water.
None of this requires a specialty shop or a big budget. It's essentially a well-stocked supermarket run: a spice blend, a bottle of acid, a jar of citrus, a can of vine leaves, sheets of seaweed and a bag of corn flour. For travellers, it's a useful souvenir strategy too — these are exactly the kind of lightweight, packable items to bring home from a trip (togarashi and nori from Japan, preserved lemons from Morocco or the Middle East) so the holiday doesn't end when you land.
