Two years ago, chef David Zamudio walked out of Alma Cocina Latina in Station North and never looked back.
He left the Venezuelan restaurant with a budding reputation. Less than a month after he departed his job as executive chef there, he was named in January 2024 as a semifinalist for the James Beard Awards, largely considered the highest honor in the culinary industry. In August of that year, he sued his old employers, whom the native Venezuelan had spent five years working for and had sponsored his O-1 visa, an exclusive and expensive document reserved for gifted individuals.
“That [time] was the start of this restaurant,” he said, sitting at a long, carefully decorated white table in his Harbor Point Spanish eatery, less than 48 hours from its soft opening Wednesday.
Josefina, Zamudio’s first solo venture, was a pipe dream lit at age 15 by his ambition to leave Venezuela and travel the world. That painfully tedious, complicated and unmistakably passion-fueled journey is reflected in every plate, painting and water carafe inside the restaurant’s red walls. Ask the 32-year-old about the scales hanging behind the bar, the curvatures in the ceiling or the varied cuts of octopus in his rendition of pulpo a la gallega, a traditional tapa with crisp, sliced potatoes and paprika, and you’re bound for a story.
Though this attention to detail may feel expected coming from a self-proclaimed perfectionist — a point emphasized by his mother — for Zamudio, the stakes have never felt higher.
The chef turned down offers from other restaurants and hospitality chains, even going a year without a salary, to develop Josefina. He maxed out credit cards paying for inventory samples, conceptualizing the menu and assisting with longer-than-expected construction to convert a short-lived Döner Brös concept into his lifelong dream.
Zamudio gave The Banner an exclusive peek of the space at 1409 Point St. in May, when a world map of the spreading interest in Turkish doner kebabs was still painted on the wall. Wires hung loose, more bathrooms needed to be built and stacks of floor plans and paint sat in the corner of what felt like a dusty gray garage. Zamudio still believed the space was hurtling toward an imminent opening.
“Most chefs only focus on cooking for a great period of time,” he said, but owning and creating a restaurant is a different muscle, one he’d never flexed. He learned the ropes from Enrique Limardo, a former Alma Latina Cocina chef who now runs a restaurant in Washington, D.C., and leaned on another business owner, Bradley Young, who taught him about making deals and signing leases.
“If I’m being honest, what I would say to myself is raise way more money,” Zamudio said. “It’s my first restaurant, my first thing. I didn’t feel confident enough. … Already the amount of money that I raised, almost a million dollars, sounded very scary.”
He said Baltimore’s permit backlogs delayed the opening by nearly a year and a half, pushing Zamudio into debt to keep it alive. Investors and landlords supported him through the turmoil, allowing him to go periods without rent and adjusting contracts.
Former Alma Latina Cocina sous chef Victor Martins, who left the restaurant around the same time as Zamudio, checked in from his new job at Tagliata, eagerly waiting to join the team, as did Zamudio’s old friend Anthony Jaimes, who left Mexico to be a junior sous chef for Josefina.
On Monday, the space appeared to vibrate with nerves. Zamudio shot back and forth between the venue’s two floors, answering staff questions and washing dishes with his mother, Annali Josefina Cermeño Gilbert, who flew in from Spain to offer support. She never expected her son to chase a culinary career, let alone one that would birth a restaurant named for her and generations of women in their family.
Inside the dining area of Josefina, which has two floors. (Kaitlin Newman/The Banner)
Josefina occupies the former Döner Brös space, seen here while in renovation last year. (Matti Gellman/The Banner)
Acorn-fed pork from Spain with housemade demi-glaze. (Kaitlin Newman/The Banner)
Gilbert said Zamudio always planned to name a daughter Josefina, which she chastised him for: “There’s too many Josefinas,” she said, adding it would be bad karma.
Growing up, she said, Zamudio was meticulous “in excess.” Her favorite dish on the current menu, rabo de toro dumplings, is a perfect example. The braised oxtail inside is accented with a rich oxtail broth and served with truffle caviar, cured egg yolk, foie gras and sofrito, a sleeker, more modern approach to the oxtail stew traditionally served in Spain to celebrate the running of the bulls. Then there’s the Iberian rice: Zamudio’s twist on the classic paella is prepared with lamb chop, bone marrow stock, caramelized onions and goat cheese.
Zamudio said Josefina aspires to replicate that feeling of dining with your Spanish grandmother, just as he did while attending culinary school. Documents allowing his grandmother, brother and father to travel out of Venezuela for the opening were rejected following the U.S. strike on the country and ongoing political turmoil. They have yet to try his food. And, although Zamudio tries to stay out of politics, he concedes his attraction to food also comes from how political it is.
“What I love about food is the story behind it,” he said. “What’s the story behind it? Who started making it?”
He chose Spain for his first restaurant concept because of the country’s conquests in South America. “I’m trying to follow how these foods started and how they started changing because of the conquering and the interrelating with our flavors,” he said.
Sous chef Anthony Jaimes, right, prepares dishes in the kitchen area. (Kaitlin Newman/The Banner)
Outside of Josefina in the Harbor Point neighborhood. (Kaitlin Newman/The Banner)
The influence is evident in Zamudio’s pork, for example, which is prepared with meat procured from black pigs in the southwest of Spain that are fattened on acorns and live only a few years. Served thinly cut on a plate with a rich and fruity reduction, the deceptively simple dish carries exceptionally bold flavor.
The chef, who tested his pork and other courses at an event with 100 people on New Year’s Eve, believes Josefina will be successful now that his food and concept feel more cohesive. He pondered aloud what that achievement could lead to if opportunities to run more restaurants were to appear in the future.
“We should probably walk before we run,” he said.
