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.