Chef Diego Argoti is a culinary experimentalist.
The Ecuadorian chef who grew up in Burbank, California and South Central clashes with the idea of culinary masterminds having to possess a certain through-line of a palette, made for the masses who enjoy contemporary gastronomy. “The clientele that we serve would normally be used to dishes that are a lot safer,” Argoti explains to Remezcla, discussing his culinary approach to his former Los Angeles restaurants, Estrano and Poltergeist.
Since 2015, Chef Diego Argoti gained his culinary chops assisting other chefs and restaurateurs at Broken Spanish, Bestia, and Bavel in Downtown Los Angeles. “I kind of treat our dining experiences like a culinary escape room, and you know that is pretty, pretty ambitious.”
The 2024 James Beard award-winning chef relishes the perspective of sharing untraditional ways to present more traditional Latine cuisine.
At the 2025 Coachella Music Festival, Diego Argoti was invited by Outstanding In The Field (OITF) to organize a multi-course meal experience set against the scenic backdrop of the Coachella Valley mountains in Indio. OITF is all about offering worldly culinary experiences in spaces that support local farmers and the natural landmarks that inspire these chefs to create.
The chef who loves hardcore bands like Rage Against The Machine, and French-Spanish artist Manu Chao, got a real-life glimpse of what it was like to experience Coachella at full-throttle when he snuck into the festival with his mom when he was a teenager. “My mom always knew how much I loved music,” Argoti remembers with a laugh. “I used to play in a bunch of hardcore bands.”
As a multi-faceted chef who is enamoured by any form of art that stimulates the human senses, “half of my culinary team are really great chefs,” Argoti dives into how he assembled his army of culinary troops for feeding 200 hungry, heat-exhausted guests at the OITF family-style dinner in the VIP Rose Gardens. “The other half are just people that know how to throw a show. We’re setting up for a show, and we’re going live and that is all I need in a team.”
Much later on, Argoti explains to Remezcla that most of his team members are former members of his band, friends and his mom who will be on-site assisting him live out his dreams of joining the sensual experience of music and food together on the biggest stage possible. For instance, the chef served a strawberry puttanesca with fermented strawberries instead of tomatoes.
He further elevates his work by covering the produce in salt with anchovies, capers, and balsamic. Argoti refers to how his mother would make a similar dish but with tomatoes. And his works stands out on shared menu at OITF that features buffalo frog legs, a duck confit, and a pandan butter mochi cake. For refreshments, a drink called the “Desert Whale Song” made with Gray Whale Gin was prepped along with the line up of dishes.
The talented chef who has become known for his underground approach to food is also all about respecting the craft through testing out new flavors that would can lead to groundbreaking, yet tasty, concoctions. Even when it comes to collaborating with his own team, he has trouble directing others because he tends to go for the feeling rather than the procedural to-do list recipe. “There is no recipe, bro,” Argoti chimes in. “It’s a f*cking lifestyle.”
Argoti is fullest when he combines his love for hard rock music, culinary experimentation, and family to personalize some of his boldest creations. “The lengua recipe that I know so well at home, I’m turning it into something that is its own interpretation,” Argoti says with exuberance. “My mom and my other family would say it’s not Ecuadorian.”
Admittedly, he is in a constant, internal battle between the influence Los Angeles culture has on his palette and the cultural dishes he has treasured since his early upbringing. “I’ll make these pickled onions with a dish, and my family will say this is not Ecuadorian and it’s so funny because I’m battling with authenticity versus my heart doing something special.”
But at the end of the day Chef Diego Argoti is making a name for himself via the art of transformation while honoring tradition.
