Hi, I’m Paul Adams, though just about everyone calls me Chef Pablo. The name goes back to my years on a nationally syndicated radio show, where I was on the air as Pablo, and since I was always the one talking about food and cooking, “Chef Pablo” kind of stuck. It’s been my kitchen name ever since.
I’m really glad you’re here, and I hope you’ll stick around a while. This whole site exists for one reason: to bring together the best restaurant copycat recipes in one place, and then make them better than the original.
Where this started
I grew up in a house where both my parents loved to cook, and weekends revolved around food. Sundays were sacred. Brunch was a production, my dad’s curried eggs, huevos rancheros, his famous “S.O.S.” (creamed beef on toast, an old Army nickname I’ll let you look up), and before we’d even sat down, he was already prepping Sunday dinner.
That dinner was a feast. The wine would start flowing while he was still cooking, the Big Band records went on, and he’d lay out a real spread in what we called our “formal dining room” which was really just the room next to the kitchen, but to us it was the special one. I think my dad loved this because he grew up poor in Liverpool, England, and took quiet pride in serving his family more than we could ever finish, something he never had as a kid.
It felt like the fanciest meal in the world. Not filet-mignon fancy. It’d be a beef roast, or a pork roast with the crackling skin my dad scored into strips by hand and tended all afternoon. We weren’t wealthy, but he’d spend the whole day on that meal, and it turned an ordinary Sunday into something that felt like an event. That’s the thing I’ve never forgotten: it wasn’t the money that made it special. It was the time, and the love, and the attention. A feast isn’t about what you can afford. It’s about deciding the people at your table are worth the whole day. That idea is the entire reason this site exists.
The recipe that started the mission
Growing up in San Diego, incredible food was everywhere, authentic Mexican taco shops on every corner, the real thing a ten-minute drive south to Tijuana. But the dish San Diego does best is the fish taco. I’ll be honest, the idea didn’t appeal to me at first. Then I tried one from Rubio’s, a crisp battered fillet in a warm soft corn tortilla, white sauce, fresh cabbage. I was hooked (no pun intended). That one taco is the reason this whole site exists.
Then work moved me to the Inland Northwest, where, at the time, most people had never heard of a fish taco and made a face when I described one. I had no choice but to recreate that flavor in my own kitchen, and that’s where my obsession with duplicating restaurant recipes began.
Why this site exists
After years of hunting down copycat recipes online and never quite finding the real thing, I decided to do it myself. If you’ve ever been let down by a “copycat” that missed the mark, you know exactly the frustration I’m talking about.
Here’s how I think about it: I love taking a recipe you know from your favorite restaurant and recreating it so it tastes just like you remember, and then making it better. Not with shortcuts, but the opposite. I do things by hand, the cutting, the mixing, and I use the best ingredients I can get. So you end up with the dish you love from the restaurant, but fresher and better than what a lot of those big chains are actually serving these days. Most of what you’ll find here are those famous chain favorites, because that’s what people want, but over time I’ll be recreating the dishes you’d find at your favorite local spots too.
I’ll level with you: I’m not culinary-school trained. I’m Chef Pablo because I love preparing amazing food, not because of a diploma on the wall. I’m a self-taught cook with a serious passion for it and the patience to get a recipe right. I won’t dazzle you with knife skills, but I’ll hand you a meal people will talk about for years.
Something bigger
Here’s what I love most: my daughter Brittney grew up with those same memories, the whole family together for a meal we’d spent all day making, the sense that dinner could be an occasion. That kind of thing feels rare now. When people want something special these days, they usually go out for it. We did the opposite, we’d cook all day and lay out a feast at home. And it didn’t have to be elaborate; even a simple grilled chicken, done with care and shared around the table, was a feast.
That’s what Brittney and I are building together now, and it’s why Chef Pablo’s is growing into something bigger we call Savore Life. This site started as mine, but the truth is we both love every part of this, the cooking, the gathering, and we’re in the kitchen together on all of it. Brittney’s a sommelier, so her feel for wine runs deep, but neither of us stays in a lane: it might be a wine she’s chosen, a bourbon I’ve matched to the meal, or a cigar and a good pour to close out the night. What she adds on top of all that is a background in hospitality and events, and an instinct for something a lot of us have forgotten: that a great event doesn’t require a reservation. It can be a dinner for two at home on a Tuesday, or the whole family gathered around the table on a Sunday. The food is the beginning. The gathering is the point.
I’m glad you found your way here. Take a look around, try a recipe, and if you have a question, head over to my Ask a Question page, I answer as quickly as I can.
Your search is over.