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CHEF ALEX DIAZ AT CENA
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CHEF LAUREN JOFFRION
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Napoleon. The beautifully-arranged tower of avocado, juicy crabmeat, and boiled egg is one of the menu’s more time-consuming dishes to construct, but alas—it is a customer favorite. Inside the cozy dining area, ambient with the last light of the evening pouring in through generous panes, most of the faces are familiar; regulars who visit once or twice a week. But to the new faces, perhaps soon-to-be-converts, the servers always recommend Executive Chef Alex Diaz’s specials. “It’s what I like to be known for,” Diaz said. Complementing a contemporary Northern Italian menu of pasta dishes ranging from Spaghetti Carbonara to Squid Ink Linguini and a tantalizing list of meat-focused mains—Braised Beef Short Rib, Coriander Crusted Tuna, and Veal Piccata among them—the specials are where Diaz shines. Centered by some intriguing protein or another—Manchac catfish, New Zealand lamb chops, soft shell crabs, or duck breast— each dish is a play on seasonal, local produce, and masterful manipulations of flavors. “We try to stick to Italian, but being from New Orleans—and half my family is from El Salvador—we cross paths as far as cuisine goes,” Diaz said. “We like to experiment, see what people react to. But we try to basically work with whatever is seasonal, whatever we can get our hands on.” Produce comes from Covey Rise Farms in Husser, along with a collection of other local farms. The spaghetti, gnocSMALL TOWN CHEFS chi, casarecce, pappardelle, linguini, and ravioli are all made by hand in house. The cheese comes from The Rind BRINGING CREATIVE ITALIAN FARE TO DOWNTOWN HAMMOND Shop around the corner. Every Thursday, the Family Fungi By Jordan LaHaye Fontenot • Photos by Lucie Monk Carter folks bring in an assortment of t’s only been two years since Cena Throughout the restaurant, black table- Hammond-grown mushrooms. And opened its doors in the heart of cloths will accentuate the vivid, glistening when in season, Northshore strawberHammond’s downtown district, oranges, reds, and fluffy whites of the ries go into everything Diaz can get hbut the sleek little Italian kitchen peach, heirloom tomato, and burrata away with. “The idea is to try to be as has already settled into its rhythms. The appetizer. In the back, one ticket after local and as from scratch as possible,” said Pork Osso Buco—braised for four hours another will come in with the scribbled Diaz. “And I think it shows in the food.” and served atop a creamy parmesan words “crawfish truffle mac & cheese,” Some of Diaz’s earliest food memories risotto with a drizzle of basil and mint and the kitchen staff will sigh as yet are of his El Salvadorian grandmother gremolata—will always nearly sell out. another order lists the Jumbo Lump Crab standing over the stove, making papusas
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and empanadas stuffed with black beans and cheese. “She was always making these faces as she cooked,” he said. “You could tell she really cared about making us happy, making the family happy with what she was making. I definitely think that kind of boiled over to me.” Today, Diaz said, he occasionally sprinkles some Latin American influences into his Italian comfort dishes at Cena. But more often, he enjoys making El Salvadorian dishes at home with his family. “Every year for Thanksgiving, I have a turkey recipe,” he said. “A three-day marinated turkey, baked in a bag, spiced with toasted sesame seeds, some ground up prunes, and lots of other spices. Once you try it, you won’t have another turkey.” Though his grandmother’s cooking certainly continues to inspire him today, Diaz said that his calling to the kitchen came long after the papusa-making memories of his youth. As a child, “I was more interested in eating,” he laughed. “The answers definitely came when I got older, when I saw how complex [cooking] could be.” Diaz’s culinary journey officially began, he said, when he was a teenager washing dishes at Alex Patout’s in Mandeville. There, he observed the fast-paced, light-hearted sense of camaraderie that blooms in a kitchen environment, “And I kind of fell in love with that.” Since then, he’s hopped from shore to shore, sharpening his skills at restaurants like Vincent’s Italian Cuisine, Etoile Restaurant & Wine Bar, Mandina’s, Josephine Estelle, and Liz’s Where Y’at Diner. “I enjoy the chaos,” he said, “the instant gratification that comes with getting your butt kicked all night, then it all coming together.” Diaz came to Cena through his friendship with owner Chanc Kinchen, who has been working in Hammond’s restaurant industry since 1995. “In this business, sometimes you just realize—you come across somebody and your work ethics, your personalities, your styles just work really well together,” Kinchen said of his working relationship and eventual friendship with Diaz. In 2018, with the opportunity to purchase the little building at the corner of Cate Street and US 190 in the center of downtown Hammond, Kinchen was finally ready to bring his dream restaurant to life. And he knew right off the bat that Diaz was the chef for the job. “The idea was to bring Hammond something they had never seen before,” Kinchen said. Since 2011, he had been developing the concept secretly—“I didn’t tell anybody, not even my parents. I had it
