OCVibe’s Katella Commons is finally giving a glimpse of what’s inside its kitchens.
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The 100-acre, mixed-use district taking shape around Anaheim’s Honda Center announced its newest batch of food hall tenants, giving Orange County denizens a clearer look at what will eventually feed the sprawling sports, music, office, park and residential project.
The newly revealed names include Danielle Duran-Zecca and Alessandro Zecca of Amiga Amore, Alberto Bañuelos of Burritos La Palma, Alex Garcia and Elvia Huerta of Evil Cooks, Kanate Ungkasrithongkul and Anita Lin of Manaao Thai Comfort Food and Zach Scherer of Darkoom and Chrysalis fame.
Additional chef partners are expected to be announced later this year. Debbie Lee, noted Los Angeles chef and familiar face on “Chopped” and “Food Network Star,” was announced as the complex’s first big name; she will open two Korean concepts, Pado and Mokja.
The Zeccas, husband-wife duo behind Amiga Amore, will bring a “Mexitalian” concept to the Anaheim project, melding Latin American and Italian cooking through the lens of their own families’ histories. Amiga Amore, their Highland Park restaurant, has earned James Beard attention in recent years, including a 2024 semifinalist nod for Best Emerging Restaurant and Danielle Duran-Zecca being a semifinalist for Best Chef, California in 2025 .
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Burritos La Palma, the Zacatecan-style burrito spot from chef-founder Alberto Bañuelos, will also join the lineup. The SoCal favorite is known for its slender burritos, fresh-pressed flour tortillas and its fillings like chicken tinga and chicharrón.
Also headed for Katella Commons: Evil Cooks, the heavy metal- and punk rock-fueled Mexican concept in El Sereno from Alex “Pobre Diablo” Garcia and Elvia “La Bruja” Huerta. Their Los Angeles restaurant has built a following for tacos and dishes that are as serious as they are unbuttoned. The couple have earned James Beard nominations and a spot on the Los Angeles Times’ 101 Best Restaurants list.
“From the beginning, Evil Cooks has been our way of combining Mexican food with music and culture we grew up around,” the two said in a joint statement.
Orange County will also see a more focused offshoot from Manaao Thai Comfort Food. Husband-wife team Kanate Ungkasrithongkul and Anita Lin, who opened Manaao in Tustin before a soon-to-open expansion at Irvine Spectrum, will launch Khaoi Soi, a dedicated concept centered on Thai curries and a tighter menu built around the dish that helped define the restaurant.
Zach Scherer, the co-chef and co-founder of Darkroom in Santa Ana (Chrysalis is his and Drew Adams’ dining concept inside Darkroom), will bring two concepts to Katella. One, a spot focused on New York-style pizza and the other built around fried chicken sandwiches. The pizza concept will lean on dough techniques, while the fried chicken sandwich space will pull from America, Asian, European and Latin American traditions, with a menu designed to evolve over time.
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“Katella Commons feels like a rare opportunity to be part of something that matters for Orange County food,” said Scherer in a written release, whose Darkroom appeared on the Los Angeles Times’ 101 Best Restaurants list.
The new additions join a larger Katella Commons vision that OCVibe has been rolling out in pieces. The market hall will be designed to serve not only arena crowds but office workers, residents, concertgoers and anyone else who finds themselves at the megacomplex.
Centrally located within OCVibe, and below The Weave office building, Katella Commons will connect the district’s central plaza and nearby entertainment venues. The food hall is being positioned as one of the development’s major gathering spaces, with OCVibe officials placing a lot of emphasis on local roots for the kitchens.
“Every concept we bring into this space is chosen because it represents a genuine culinary voice, with chefs and operators who have something real to say,” Nick Pacific, vice president of Katella Commons development, said in a written statement.
Overseeing the culinary programming and chef selection is chef Rémi Lauvand, who said the new roster of chefs will help define the food hall’s ambitions.
“They each bring a distinct point of view, a commitment to quality and a passionate following,” he said in a written statement.
While Anaheim, along with a handful of other Orange County cities, has already established a food hall of its own, Katella Commons at OCVibe, the $5 billion “city within a city” project reshaping roughly 100 acres of Anaheim, hopes to entice people with a bevy of names that already have a strong following within the food scene.
OCVibe will continue to announce additional concepts and names as Katella Commons’ full lineup takes shape ahead of its 2027 opening.
The social spot at the 100-acre, mixed-use district is slated to feature 21 kitchens alongside six original bar and lounge concepts.
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