Meet Danielle Duran Zecca | Chef / owner

My husband was the one who offered me my first chef position , in nyc. At his first Restaurant he owned , during that experience is where I really saw what it meant to be a chef owner , it felt like everyday I had to wear a different hat to keep the business running like a well oiled machine . Some days I was the repair woman , the pastry chef , the host , the bartender, which was a great time and really showed me how to own my own business. To understand that capacity of each job and to appreciate the people who came to work with us , because I understood their role . Unfortunately that restaurants rent was raised to something ridiculously high , and we had to walk away . We always knew that is what we truly wanted to own our  little spot one day . We just didn’t know where we wanted it . After moving to Los Angeles , where I am originally from , we began to settle and lay roots . Still unsure of how we could get there , we began two businesses a catering company named eat your heart out , and a hot sauce company which was in the works for many many years just never enough time in busy New York , named El Chorro . From there I wanted more to explore what food made me a chef , what food was I known for ,the catering was great but I was making everything from kabobs to sushi ,and not really tapping into the food I enjoyed to cook , pasta and my roots Mexican cuisine. We had the opportunity through Feastly to start a pop up and that’s where the wonderful idea began and I found my identity as a chef . Making the recipes my Abuela taught me but with the passion I had for pasta . We wanted to be our own bosses again ,run a place that felt like you were in our home dining with us . The pop up was a journey , hard work , tested us to see how ready and how much we really wanted it , and it is our passion , me being a chef and my husband being in hospitality that we knew we did one day and we just needed to find our little casita.

I got to where I am today from a lot of hardwork , dedication , and never giving up . The journey was not easy like any that you build from scratch , but the past gave me the strength. I worked in some amazing kitchens and some hard ones . From Church and state , lukshon , momed, le bernardin , the modern , and le coucou and Union .Where you had to prove your self not only as a chef but seemed a little harder as a female . Had to work harder than the men , never say no to opportunities when they came and sacrifice things like holidays , going home to see your family , to be able to get ahead . I learned to believe in myself , to know how bad I wanted it and how I could achieve getting there . Growing up I always saw my dad and how hard he worked to get us things , it was in stilled in me to work hard for what I wanted and never take no for an answer . Amiga Amore is my passion , the love I have for feeding people and the joy they get from my food , from a dish that reminded them of a memory . I’m most proud of my husband and I believing in eachother and building what Amiga Amore is today , we had a lot of bumps in the road ,and had to lean on eachother to overcome them . We are so much stronger in our love for eachother , for our industry and for our passion project Amiga Amore . We never gave up as hard as it was to build it ourselves . Amiga Amore is the friendship that turned to love not only between my husband and I but between our two cultures Mexican and Italian.

Hmm let’s see , I would definitely take them to the observatory, the beaches ,Manhattan , Santa Monica and maybe Venice to get a sense of LA .Another favorite spot is old town Pasadena to walk around and eat at home kettle for some clams and doughnuts  . To eat I’d definitely hit up the taco trucks my favorites are teddys red tacos , mariscos Jalisco , and Leo’s in eagle rock  . I’d go to Republique for a fun dinner with delicious cocktails , I’d hit up uovo for some pasta direct from Italy . Korean bbq is one of our favorites so I’d have them go experience that with me . Sunday smorgaburg to get to try all the awesome pop ups , and then walk around downtown . Oh and echo park for a swan ride and fresh fruta cart . Lastly olvera street for some shopping , radolfos tacos , and a stop for a Phillips’s French dip . Oh and one more stop in Thai town Jitlada for all the spicy Thai we can get.