The Panxa Cocina Experience
This Long Beach Southwestern cuisine is blowing people’s minds via their mouths.
Recently, we came across some of the nicest people we’ve had the pleasure of meeting in quite some time. In an epic duo, Chef Art Gonzales and Manager Vanessa Auclair have created Long Beach’s to-die-for Southwestern restaurant, Panxa Cocina. Believers of creating great experiences with simple food, their hard work has made a lot of people happy. It was only a matter of time before we discovered it.
Long-beach based artist/chef/wine specialist and friend of Jack Reynolds, Steven Nakamura, invited me to dinner to catch up at Panxa Cocina. We’d been to a lot of restaurants, but there was immediately something sensational about this place; it was just the right everything. The people had the right attitude, the guests were feeling treated, and the food was outrageously on par.
Through some fun food conversation with our waitress, it prompted Chef Art to come out and introduce himself so we could hear more about his culinary ideas. That night, some off-the-menu stuff happened that would make mouths water five states away.
Our conversations revealed some of Gonzales’ past as a young firefighter cooking in the firehouse kitchen for his cohort and his evolution from there onto gourmet cooking. Like any good, hard-working story, he evolved over a number of years from a dishwasher, to sous chef, to head chef, to head chef and restaurant owner.
Gonzales’ title may have changed over the years, but one thing remains, he is a badass chef working seamlessly with a badass manager.
When you leave, your belly will be happy.
This couldn’t have been more true. Cheers to Art and Vanessa for bringing all the right things together at the right time. Want to eat at Panxa Cocina? Yes you do.
Panxa Cocina
3937 E Broadway
Long Beach, CA 90803