Head chef Diana Phipps’ upscale menu is anchored by local ingredients and the bold flavors of her Australian upbringing
PHOTOGRAPHY BY PATRICK TREGENZA
Although Diana Phipps’ path to her post at Carmel Beach Hotel’s restaurant, Secoya, was a circuitous one, her life has always revolved around food. “I grew up in a house filled with cooking,” she says. “My grandmother, a home economics teacher trained in classical French cuisine, lived with us, and my father baked bread and gardened. My mother, meanwhile, was always making dishes she learned from watching televised cooking shows. We made everything from scratch, and I also cooked extensively for my family and friends.”
Phipps studied home economics at Queensland University of Technology in her native Australia and in 1998, she and her husband immigrated to the United States.
Prior to earning her diploma at the International Culinary Center in Campbell in 2016, Phipps worked in various parts of the hospitality industry, including front- and back-of-the-house positions. “A culinary career was always on the back burner [due to raising a family and other commitments] until I applied to cooking school,” she says.
In 2017, Phipps nabbed a prestigious internship at Aubergine at L’Auberge Carmel (sister property to Carmel Beach Hotel), under acclaimed executive chef Justin Cogley. “Justin definitely shaped my culinary perspective and elevated my skills and attention to detail,” says Phipps. “The way he selects and uses ingredients made me understand that every choice matters, and that technique and understanding your own voice is crucial.”
Phipps attributes her love of various cuisines to growing up in a culturally diverse country. She is always experimenting with new flavors, and her current passions run toward whole grains, assertively flavored winter greens and Mediterranean spices and syrups. She describes Secoya’s menu as “plant-centric, with an eye to seasonality.”
“I enjoy combining the flavors of my Australian heritage with American cuisine, and having lived through decades of environmental changes, focusing on locally available ingredients is important to me,” she says.
Maximizing flavor is also one of Phipps’ hallmarks as a chef. She loves to enhance simple ingredients with bursts of citrus or spice as well as utilize techniques like grilling and charring. The following recipes showcase Phipps’ ability to coax as much flavor as possible from familiar ingredients like butternut squash and halibut through roasting and pan-searing, and punctuating them with bold flavors like bitter greens, pomegranate molasses and dill pickle brine.
About the author
Amber Turpin is a freelance food and travel writer based in the Santa Cruz Mountains.
