Chef Mark Penticostes is the new Executive Chef whipping up family-oriented dishes at the Student Center.  

The University of the Pacific’s Sacramento Campus has a new Bon Appétit Executive Chef, Mark Penticostes. 

From working in fine dining resorts like the Ritz-Carlton and restaurants like Michael Mina in the Bay Area to mom-and-pop shops to corporate cooking, Penticostes has taken every experience to expand his ever-growing skillset and knowledge of cooking.  

Penticostes has spent the last 15 years of his career as a chef at Morrison Healthcare. 

“I never thought that I would be in healthcare for that long, but it was one of the most grateful and humbling experiences in my career. I was helping people get better by creating better food for them,” Penticostes said. 

As a chef in the healthcare industry, Penticostes learned to cook with lots of fresh ingredients and herbs, and to cut out other ingredients that might inflame or harm a healing body, such as salt, butter, or acidic foods.  

Growing up in a Filipino home, Penticostes remembers being in the kitchen with his mom and grandma and always wanting to help when they were making his favorite dish, Bulalo. A Philippine dish with braised beef, mixed vegetables such as potatoes, cabbage, green beans, and bok choy combined with fish sauce, garlic, and onion.  

“This is maybe a cliché, but being in the kitchen with my mom and my grandma is where my passion for cooking started,” Penticostes said. 

For the past few years, he has been leaning more into his heritage roots and cooking more Asian inspired cuisine. Pulling techniques from his fine dining background while ditching the concept in favor of family-style meals that anyone can enjoy and feel welcomed.  

“McGeorge is such a diverse school,” Penticostes said. “You see so many different types of ethnicities. So, I want to highlight here in the Café and cook food from different regions that someone might miss from home.” 

Previously, Pentecostes drew inspiration from his workplace and had colleagues submit their favorite home-cooked meals for him to recreate. He plans to continue that idea at Pacific.  

Café Bon Appétit in the campus’ Student Center serves breakfast from 8:30 a.m. to 10:30 a.m. Lunch hours are Monday through Thursday, 11:00 a.m. to 3:00 p.m., and Fridays, 11:00 a.m. to 2:00 p.m. Dinner is served from 4:00 p.m. to 6:00 p.m. Monday – Thursday.  

Café Bon Appétit, located in the campus Student Center, serves students from a variety of degree programs across McGeorge School of Law, the School of Health Sciences, and the Arthur A. Dugoni School of Dentistry’s Sacramento-based programs.