Chef David LaForce of El Vez - Biography

A dedicated veteran with more than 25 years in the industry, David LaForce landed his first restaurant job as a dishwasher in his hometown of Fort Smith, Arkansas. He began climbing the kitchen hierarchy and hasn’t left the kitchen since. After criss-crossing the country finding cooking opportunities everywhere from Steamboat Springs, Colorado to Montana’s Glacier National Park, he went on to obtain a formal culinary education at Johnson & Wales. The experience culminated in an externship at the Fairmont Scottsdale Princess, a AAA Five-Diamond resort in Arizona, where his love of Latin cuisine was first sparked.

LaForce took a position under James Beard Award-winner Janos Wilder at his eponymous Tucson restaurant, Janos, in 2001. The restaurant’s emphasis on interpreting regional Mexican and Southwestern ingredients with refined French execution marks one of the most formative and inspiring periods of LaForce’s kitchen journey.

Soon after arriving in Philadelphia, LaForce made an immediate impact on the STARR Restaurants fold, working as the executive chef of Center City hotspots like Continental Mid-town and Alma de Cuba. In 2009, he was tapped as the executive chef of El Vez, where he designed the lively Mexican-inspired menu with both traditional and innovative touches. His success made him the ideal fit to oversee the New York branch of El Vez, in Battery Park City —larger in physical scale than its Philly sibling, but identical in its fun-loving and energetic spirit.