Small Town Chefs: Alex Diaz

Chef Alex Diaz

BRINGING CREATIVE ITALIAN FARE TO DOWNTOWN HAMMOND

By Jordan LaHaye Fontenot • Photos by Lucie Monk Carter

It’s only been two years since Cena opened its doors in the heart of Hammond’s downtown district, hbut the sleek little Italian kitchen has already settled into its rhythms. The Pork Osso Buco—braised for four hours and served atop a creamy parmesan risotto with a drizzle of basil and mint gremolata—will always nearly sell out.

Throughout the restaurant, black tablecloths will accentuate the vivid, glistening oranges, reds, and fluffy whites of the peach, heirloom tomato, and burrata appetizer. In the back, one ticket after another will come in with the scribbled words “crawfish truffle mac & cheese,” and the kitchen staff will sigh as yet another order lists the Jumbo Lump Crab 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.

Chef Alex Diaz

Lucie Monk Carter

“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, gnocchi, casarecce, pappardelle, linguini, and ravioli are all made by hand in house. The cheese comes from The Rind Shop around the corner. Every Thursday, the Family Fungi folks bring in an assortment ofHammond-grown mushrooms. And when in season, Northshore strawberries go into everything Diaz can get away with. “The idea is to try to be as local and as from scratch as possible,” said Diaz. “And I think it shows in the food.”

Some of Diaz’s earliest food memories are of his El Salvadorian grandmother standing over the stove, making papusas 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.”

Jumbo Lump Crabmeat Napolean

Lucie Monk Carter

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 all on paper in notebooks.” The idea for a fresh, Italian-driven menu and space came from a trip to St. Helena, California, when Kinchen stepped into a little café in the downtown area for a quick glass of wine. “As soon as I walked in there, it was like everything I had in my head right in front of me.”

Diaz brought his experience in Italian restaurants around the Northshore and New Orleans areas to the new menu, and helped Kinchen open Cena in March 2019. “He knew how to roll pasta, he knew exactly what I wanted,” said Kinchen. “We have always worked hard, side by side, having management meetings every week to talk about fresh ideas and to keep everything going forward. He knocks it out of the park, day in and day out.”

Still, opening up a restaurant branded Italian in a small town like Hammond came with certain expectations. “We can do lasagna, we can do meatballs,” Diaz said. “But we’ve kind of had to teach our clientele, for lack of a better word, that we have so much more to offer.” For the first few months, to appease the spaghetti-craving crowd, Cena hosted Tuesday Sicilian nights. “They were great for a while,” said Diaz. “But then they just kind of fizzled out. People realized what we could really do.” It didn’t take long for the regulars to establish themselves. Two years later, Diaz says that about eighty percent of business is made up of familiar faces.

Lucie Monk Carter

A New Orleans native, Diaz explained that this proximity to his customers is part of what has kept him more inclined towards working in smaller towns like Hammond on the outskirts of the Big Easy. “I like the idea that we see the same customers all the time,” he said. “It really is a nice community to be part of.”

And sitting in the corner at Cena— the sidewalks of Cate Street just across the glass coming alive as Hammond’s gentle nightlife starts to awaken—you can see it. At the bar, glasses filled with limoncello spritz clink in celebration. A baby laughs across the way. An older man twirls up his carbonara and tells the passing hostess hello, and a couple digs into each end of their peaches and burrata plate. The waiter asks if I’ve ever been there before, and I tell him yes— and that I’ll take the night’s special.

cenahammond.com

Visit countryroadsmag.com to find Chef Alex Diaz’s recipe for classic pesto.

Pork Osso Buco

Lucie Monk Carter