Xef

Alex Zubia, known as “Xef,” is a chef and food justice advocate born and raised in Fresno, CA (Yokuts Land). After attending The California Culinary Academy in San Francisco (Ramaytush Ohlone land) in 2007 and discovering his passion for cooking through his love of eating, Xef opened his own food truck from 2008-2015, focusing on providing healthier, farm-to-fork versions of familiar foods.

Today, Xef's work centers on decolonizing diets and revitalizing ancestral foodways. He is the founder of My Homies Kitchen, a low-waste kitchen and community-based movement that merges food, land, and liberation.

He also serves as Program Director of the Food, Fiber & Medicine Program at California Open Lands. Through this role, he helps reindigenize the plate—applying principles like ITEK (Indigenous Traditional Ecological Knowledge) and Indigenous Permaculture Design to modern kitchens, making ancestral ingredients more accessible, relevant, and rooted in today’s food systems.

Xef fights for food justice, mentors young fathers and system-impacted youth, and created the Food Sovereignty & Medicine Program at Fresno Barrios Unidos. His ultimate goal is to promote food sovereignty and bring his community back to cooking and eating their Indigenous foods, which are abundant in the Central Valley. Xef and his community literally plant seeds for the next seven generations—a vital step in combating soil erosion and lack of biodiversity crucial to climate restoration.