Hands-On Cooking Classes and Plant-Powered Culinary Fiesta with Davin & Jessica Waite
Week of April 27, 2024
Davin & Jessica offer hands-on culinary experiences, 3.5 hours each, during which you will enjoy preparing your own meal along with fellow cooks. Classes take place at La Cocina Que Canta, our culinary center on Tuesday and Wednesday, at 4pm. In addition, Chefs Davin & Jessica will collaborate with La Cocina Que Canta’s Executive Chef Reyna Venegas and her team to create a special feast (with wine pairing!) on Thursday at 4:45pm.
Tuesday Hands-On Cooking Class 4:00 PM Sign Up
Each class $145 (tax included). Class subject to change, check your weekly planner and schedule for updates. The maximum number of guests per class is 14.
Wednesday Hands-On Cooking Class 4:00 PM Sign Up
Each class $145 (tax included). Class subject to change, check your weekly planner and schedule for updates. The maximum number of guests per class is 14.
Thursday Plant-Powered Culinary Fiesta 4:45 PM Sign Up
Celebrate the abundance of our organic farm and the connection to community with a Farm-to-Table dining experience – a perfect blend of health, tradition, flavor, and fun! Cost is $150 per person, tax and wine pairing included. The maximum number of guests is 30. Sign Up at the Appointments Desk or through the link above.
A local legend in the sustainable food community, Chef Davin Waite is a classically trained sushi chef who thrives on pushing boundaries with creative uses for ingredients that deliver exciting flavors while minimizing food waste and celebrating local proteins and produce. Davin co-owns and oversees culinary operations at Oceanside restaurants Wrench & Rodent Seabasstropub — beloved for its innovative omakase and dry-aging program — plant-based The Plot, which will sprout new locations in 2023, local seafood concept Shoots Fish x Beer, and most recently Brine Box, a sustainable seafood joint situated at the end of the iconic Oceanside Pier.
With each new project, Davin creates a dining ethos in his own image; scrappy, irreverent and constantly pushing boundaries. He aims to stay in a state of consistent innovation and creation in order to inspire and is often teaching sustainable cooking techniques to elementary students, culinary students and city officials. Davin has collaborated on grants with Scripps Institute of Oceanography and NOAA Fisheries in an effort to popularize sustainable cooking techniques, turning bycatch and less utilized cuts into marketable dishes. He was recently bestowed the 2022 Sustainability Advocate Award by the California Travel Association, the only chef to receive the honor.
Davin’s menus reflect his mission and core values as he continues to evolve as a chef and as an advocate.
Oceanside restaurateur and regeneretarian, Jessica Waite is a tireless advocate for improving and educating people on food systems. Empowering communities is one of her most essential feats, revealing that what one eats is one of the most important things we can do for the health of our communities and the planet, all the while making badass food with plants. Her goal is to build a business based on the ideals of conscious capitalism; a strategy that will benefit all stakeholders, partners, customers, and the environment.
In 2017, while attending the California Resource Recovery Association in San Diego, Jessica wrote the first business plan for a restaurant with a zero-waste ethos and an entirely plant-based menu. Two and a half years later, the first location of The Plot opened in South Oceanside. The Plot is yet another extension of Jessica’s sustainability projects that she has pursued with husband and partner Davin for over ten years. A vegetarian by age seven and vegan for more than half of her 41 years, Jessica considers The Plot to be the most culture-shifting restaurant she’s conceived to date. The Plot, a 100% plant-based oasis, focuses on the whole vegetable, the total utilization of fresh, boundary-pushing ingredients — some of which are grown directly behind the restaurant. The Plot was awarded the Best New Restaurant in 2020 by San Diego Magazine and awarded one of the Best New Restaurants in the US by The Vegetarian Times in 2021. In 2023, The Plot was ranked #2 in Tasting Table’s list of the “20 Best Restaurants in San Diego” and one of “The Most Sustainable Vegan Restaurants Nationwide” by Veg Out.
Jessica is prepared to feed the evolution and illuminate the idea that plant-based eating does not have to be dull but rather colorful, imaginative, and full of flavor.