Different chefs feel comfortable in different environments. While many prefer the intimacy of a small kitchen, from food trucks to hole-in-the-wall local haunts, Nathaniel Marcus, the senior sous-chef at the combo Ritz-Carlton-JW Marriott, prefers the massive corporate space a hotel kitchen provides.  Talking about Savoca, the hotel’s centerpiece Italian-Californian trattoria, Marcus said he loved “the style of it.”

“Everything’s different. When you’re working near the Staples Center, you deal with volume you don’t normally see at any other property,” Marcus said. “You don’t normally get to have that experience working at a standalone restaurant property really anywhere in Los Angeles.”