Chef Dustin Trani Named in Top 5 Rising Chefs in the U.S.

This past month, Chef Dustin Trani of San Pedro’s J. Trani’s and currently DOMA Beverly Hills restaurant was named as one of the top rising chefs in Gayot (guy-oh) Magazine’s Restaurant Issue for 2013.

Trani became the executive chef at DOMA in 2012, bringing Italian heritage and his travels around the world to his cuisine. Trani, who was trained at an early age by his father and grandfather, went to Belbo, Italy after college where he studied pasta making at Guido da Costigliole. He then became a chef at the People’s Café in Zagreb in Croatia. At at 23, he went further east to Thailand to cook at the Mandarin Oriental Hotel.

In 2007, Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger chose Trani to represent California in the Great American Seafood Cook-Off in New Orleans, where he met celebrity Chef Ming Tsai and became a fan of his. Tsai recruited him as a team member for the James Beard Awards. Trani later became a sous chef under Tsai at the Blue Ginger in Boston and worked under Charles Phan of the Slanted Door in San Francisco and Todd English at Olives in New York.

Gayot Magazine and its accompanying restaurant, hotel, and travel reviews was founded in 1969 by André Gayot, a French restaurant critic. The magazine was initially designed to act as a guide focused on the top 40 restaurants in any given city rating them on a 20 point scale.

The Gayot Guide has been touted as an alternative to the Michelin Guide, which has been criticised for uneven appraisals of New York City restaurants. The décor, service, ambience and wine list are commented upon within each review, but do not affect a restaurant’s overall score.

Each year Gayot publishes its list of the Top 40 Restaurants in the United States, a guide to the nation’s best restaurants.