July 3, 2018 – A talented new chef is bringing his fine dining chops to Assembly restaurant on Pacific Ave. in Santa Cruz. Chef Matty Love, a native of Salt Lake City, is moving south from Sacramento, where he was chef de cuisine at The Firehouse, the capital city’s famed special occasion restaurant.
“I’m really excited to be here in Santa Cruz and to be part of the community,” he says. “The restaurant is already refined, my plan is to make some really great food that people will love.”
According to Zachary Davis—owner of Assembly, the Picnic Basket and Penny Ice Creamery, with business partner and chef Kendra Baker—”Matty is a great combination of steady and humble and talented and community-minded, all the things we believe in.”
Love has been in the Assembly kitchen for the past week and takes the helm on Thursday, so you can begin trying his food right away. He plans to add a few new dishes to the menu soon, including house-made pasta items and his signature braised oxtail ragout with orange and fennel.
“It’s going to be fun to be in a place that is surrounded by wonderful farms and be able to use produce from farmers that Kendra has already established great relationships with,” he adds.
Love is in the process of moving his family down from the Sacramento area. He and his wife Kelly—a UCSC alum—have two boys, ages three and one. They also have family connections in Capitola.
“I’ve been coming to Santa Cruz since I was a teenager and have always loved this area,” he says.
Love went to culinary school in Boston at the Cambridge School of Culinary Arts on Harvard Square and worked his first kitchen jobs on the East Coast. In 2006, he moved to Jackson Hole, Wyoming, where he started out as a sous chef at the Four Seasons resort. Working his way through several hotel kitchens, he was eventually hired as executive chef at the exclusive Amangani Resort—where rooms go for upwards of $1,000 a night.
“It was such a global clientele in Wyoming,” he says. “I feel fortunate to have worked from coast-to-coast and in the mountains and will use all the techniques I’ve acquired along the way to bring out the best in the local ingredients we have in Santa Cruz.”
Chef Love is Assembly’s third chef—following Carlo Espina and Jessica Yarr—and he also brings his leadership skills to Assembly. “I look forward to joining the vibrant culinary scene here, while pushing myself and the kitchen team to be the best version of ourselves,” he says.
About the author
Deborah Luhrman is publisher and editor of Edible Monterey Bay. A lifelong journalist, she has reported from around the globe, but now prefers covering our flourishing local food scene and growing her own vegetables in the Santa Cruz Mountains.
