A mix of excitement, anxiety, and pride rushed through Arturo Enciso yesterday as he heard the name of his homegrown sourdough panadería, Gusto Bread, announced as a coveted finalist for the James Beard Awards at the ceremony held at the Conrad Hotel in downtown Los Angeles yesterday.
“I felt proud just to see ‘Long Beach’ up there on the screen next to all these other major cities,” he tells L.A. TACO. “We didn’t study business or baking, Ana [Salatino] and I just dove into it all with no experience, just romanticism for bread and passion for our community. So to be recognized nationally inspires us to keep going.”
Since first popping up in Salatino’s and Enciso’s former home equipped with an earthen oven in downtown Long Beach in 2017, the partners—in life and business—have learned the art of running a naturally leavened bakery by trial and error.
Enciso is originally from Lebec and Fort Tejon, the small mountainside community with a population of 1,200 people on top of the grapevine where Los Padres National Forest meets Angeles National Forest. They opened up their brick-and-mortar shop on 4th Street in 2020. Now, they employ 20 passionate workers and count on a full espresso bar with “Cafe Cuate” beans that Enciso roasts himself every Friday.