Larry Cruz

Lorenzo "Larry" J. Cruz (September 17, 1941 – February. 8, 2008) was a Filipino restaurateur who founded the LJC Restaurant Group, which operates several restaurants in the Philippines.^[1] Among the restaurants he established through the LJC Group were Café Adriatico, Cafe Havana, Bistro Remedios, and Abe, which was named after his father, the writer E. Aguilar Cruz.^[2] Cruz was also a journalist and magazine publisher.

Before entering the restaurant business, Cruz was a reporter for the Manila Times and the Philippine Herald. In the 1960s, he joined the staff of a Hong Kong-based magazine. In the early years of the administration of Philippine President Ferdinand Marcos, Cruz was a member of the presidential press office.^[1]

Cruz, who was not a chef himself, established Café Adriatico in Malate, Manila in 1979.^[3] The venture proved successful and helped revitalize the Malate area, other restaurants and cafes opening in the vicinity in the midst of the Adriatico's success. Cruz expanded his restaurant business with the opening of several other restaurants within Metro Manila through the LJC Restaurant Group. At the time of his death in 2008, Cruz had opened fourteen restaurants in the Philippines. Several of his restaurants featured Filipino and Kapampangan cuisine.

In the late 1980s, Cruz published Metro Magazine, a city guide/political/lifestyle magazine inspired by New York Magazine and Vanity Fair.^[4] He later sold the magazine to Eugenio Lopez Jr. in order to finance the expansion of his restaurants.^[4]

Upon his death on February 4, 2008, following complications from cancer, Cruz was hailed at the time of his death as the leading Filipino "pioneer in theme or concept restaurants" and the man who had "shaped Philippine café society".^[3]

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