A local hospital’s chef will lead this year’s Tower Bridge Dinner. Here’s why
In a fitting turn coming out of the COVID-19 pandemic, UC Davis Health executive chef/director of culinary operations and innovation Santana Diaz will lead the eighth annual Tower Bridge Dinner this fall, according to Visit Sacramento.
A Yuba City native with a culinary arts degree from the Art Institute of California’s Sacramento campus, Diaz earned his kitchen stripes at high-end local restaurants such as The Firehouse in Old Sacramento and Taste in Plymouth.
He ran food operations at Golden 1 Center and the San Francisco 49ers’ Levi’s Stadium, helping both dump mass-produced stadium bites in favor of farm-to-fork fare.
Yet Diaz left Golden 1 Center to challenge what American hospital food could be in 2017, sourcing locally and seasonally to produce better meals for patients and staff. Accolades have followed: the James Beard Foundation named UC Davis Medical Center the first Smart Catch hospital in 2019, reflecting Diaz’s commitment to serving sustainable seafood.
“We’re incredibly excited about the experience that will come from this year’s lead chef team, especially after such a challenging year,” Visit Sacramento President and CEO Mike Testa said in a media release. “And to have inspiration coming from Chef Diaz and the UC Davis Health team in a time when our health is such a top priority is especially poignant. I think this year’s event will be one of the most unique that we’ve ever had.”
Diaz is an appropriate host to the hyper-exclusive dinner, which will open the Farm-to-Fork Festival on Sept. 12 and span the length of the yellow bridge connecting Sacramento to West Sacramento. But he was actually selected to lead the 2020 Tower Bridge Dinner before the pandemic forced its cancellation.
Diaz’s team of support cooks will include:
▪ Patricio Wise, owner/executive chef at Nixtaco
▪ Evelyn May Miliate, culinary innovations manager at Raley’s
▪ Dane Blom, executive chef at Grange
▪ Sarah Saldana, kitchen supervisor at Track 7 The Other Side
▪ Billy Ngo, owner/executive chef at Kru Contemporary Japanese Cuisine, Kodaiko Ramen & Bar and Fish Face Poke Bar
Diaz is the first Sacramento-based chef to helm the dinner since 2017, when a crew including Ernesto Delgado of Mayahuel and Kurt Spataro of Paragary Restaurant Group rotated through each course. California culinary icon Jeremiah Tower led a team of local cooks in 2018, followed by Suzette Gresham of two-Michelin-starred San Francisco restaurant Acquerello in 2019.
Tickets for the Tower Bridge Dinner are mostly reserved for corporate sponsors, but the general public can enter into a random drawing for the remaining seats starting July 15. Tickets are $225 per person and must be purchased two at a time. They fund the following year’s dinner, the free Farm-To-Fork festival and scholarships for farmworkers’ children attending Sacramento State.
Those high barriers have led to homogeneous attendance in the past, Visit Sacramento chief of diversity, equity and inclusion Sonya Bradley acknowledged in the media release. The tourism organization is asking sponsors to consider inviting employees from diverse backgrounds this year.
“Our table sponsors are in an important position,” Bradley said. “By joining Visit Sacramento in prioritizing guests who have previously been underrepresented, and who could potentially benefit from the relationships that can come from this one evening, our sponsors can help us make the Tower Bridge Dinner an event that is truly reflective of Sacramento its self.”
This story was originally published June 4, 2021 at 9:04 AM.