Arturo Enciso
Baker/Owner, Gusto Bread | Long Beach, CA
June 2021
2021 StarChefs Los Angeles Rising Stars Baker Award Winner presented by Butter of Europe
Every Christmas during his childhood, Arturo Enciso would travel to Mexico from his hometown of Lebec, California. With parents from Chihuahua and Mexico City, he grew up closely connected to his heritage. In adulthood, he moved to Long Beach, playing guitar in rock bands and working coffee shop jobs. In 2013, he and his partner, Ana Belén Salatino, moved to a backhouse, and the wood-fired oven in their shared garden space caught Enciso’s attention. He bought some wood, experimented with baking, pored over cookbooks, and attended bread-making workshops. In early 2017, during a cross-country, soul-searching journey, he took a three-day bread class with Richard Miscovich that changed his life. When Enciso returned to California, he and Salatino moved to a two-story house, where they started a cottage bakery, Gusto Bread. In late summer 2020, they traded their home baking space for a Long Beach brick-and-mortar to set up their panadería orgánica in the Retro Row independent business district. Today, their team is eight employees strong, and Salatino oversees marketing and operations. Customers patiently wait for Enciso’s freshly baked goods, which illustrate how far he’s come since the day he first spotted that wood-fired oven.
