Meet The Fresh Chefs of Bel-Air | The Culinary Duo Behind The Rock’s Ultimate Cheat Meal at Brique French Toastery

By Jennifer Redondo

Now this is a story all about how Chef Rocky and Daniel Breiz’s lives got flipped-turned upside down, and we’d like to take a minute, just sit right there. We’ll tell you how they became the fresh chefs of a town called Bel-Air. 

In the San Francisco Bay Area, born and raised, in the kitchen where they spent most of their days, cooking and creating…until they moved to Bel-Air to cook and care for celebrities as the fresh chefs of Bel-Air. 

Chef Rocky and Daniel Breiz are collectively known as “The Fresh Chefs of Bel-Air”. The duo has over 15 years of experience on the private side of the culinary world. With the encouragement and support from Chef Rocky’s celebrity client, Dwaye “The Rock” Johnson, they made their public debut with their latest creation, Brique French Toastery in Los Angeles, California. To learn more about the brains and inspiration behind The Rock’s ultimate cheat meal, read on. 

1. Tell us about yourself. 

Racquel Rockquemore: My name is Racquel Rockquemore-Breiz, also known as Chef Rocky. I'm half black and Filipino. My mother is Filipino and my dad is Black. I was born in San Francisco and raised in Vallejo. I moved back to San Francisco when I attended the California Culinary Academy in 2000. 

Daniel Breiz: I was born in San Francisco. For the most part, I grew up in Daly City then moved up and down the peninsula from Pacifica all the way to Belmont. I actually wanted to get into computers, but I didn’t see myself sitting behind a desk. Like Rocky, I ended up at the California Culinary Academy. 

2. When did you start cooking? 

Racquel Rockquemore: I started cooking at a really young age, around three or four years old! Unlike my brother and sister, I was always allowed to sit on the kitchen counter. I knew how to stir things and flip things over without the fear of getting burned. 

Daniel Breiz: I started cooking at the age of seven. A lot of the houses in Daly City have electric stoves, so it wasn’t too much harm. I started with Nestle cookies, following the directions on the package. Then, I upgraded to bacon and eggs. From there, it just took off, and I wanted to go to culinary school, but it was just expensive. 

3. How did you two meet? 

Racquel Rockquemore: We met at culinary school, and we were the last class at the California Culinary Academy before it was bought out by Le Courdon Bleau. 

Daniel Breiz: She approached me one day. She couldn't say no.

Racquel Rockquemore: The real story is that he would ask one of my classmates, “Hey, who's your Latin friend you're always with?” And she would be like, “Don't worry about her. She got a man!” But then, my boyfriend and I eventually broke up. One day, I was studying for finals and I was in the mezzanine area all by myself. There's a thousand chairs. By the way, all of them were empty. Daniel walked up with a plate of pineapple and said "This seat taken?” I responded, “Apparently none of those seats are taken but you can sit down”. 

Daniel Breiz: That was it! Our first date was at Ben and Jerry’s Ice Cream on Haight Street after school. After school we would go to the beach and do random stuff.

4. When you decided to pursue a career in culinary arts, were your parents supportive? 

Racquel Rockquemore: Yeah, they were totally supportive. Before I went to culinary school, I attended community college then one day my mom told me that I was starting culinary school next week. She decided for me because she thought I was wasting my time at community college. 

Daniel Breiz:  I wanted to go to culinary school, but it was really expensive. So I ended up going to community college to try the computer thing. Throughout high school, I was already working as a game tester for Electronic Arts.  I decided to go to college, but I didn’t feel like I was learning anything on the computer science side. When I tried to go to culinary school before I actually enrolled,  my mom didn’t get any grants or funding to help, so I decided to wait it out a few years which ended up working out. I wouldn’t have met Rocky otherwise. 

5. What did you do after graduating from culinary school? 

Daniel Breiz: After two years of college, I tried interning in Hawaii. But it was right after 9/11, and it was like a ghost town. Nobody was there because no one was flying. So I kidnapped Rocky because she was love sick. I brought her to Hawaii with me for a little bit and then I ended up at Duke's for a little bit, then decided to look for other opportunities. Unfortunately, no one was hiring so we came back home to California to start our own catering company called Crave, where we made food for local businesses and clubs around San Francisco.  

Racquel Rockquemore: I worked at the Stanford Park Hotel as the pastry chef for a year, then I ended up working at Ruth’s Chris steakhouse because one of our previous instructors was one of the training chefs. He was also the executive chef. He asked me to help him open up another Ruth’s Chris in Walnut Creek. I spent a total of six years working there. 

Daniel Breiz: I was working at a bunch of wineries in Sonoma. I took a lot of random jobs because I wanted to get as much experience as I could, whether it was working on the hotline, catering, or working at a bunch of different country clubs. We always wanted to get into the private chef thing, but you need experience. That’s why we started the catering company to gain more experience. Then an agency helped us get hired by a family in Aspen, Colorado. We left the Bay Area, and moved to Colorado for two years. 

Racquel Rockquemore: It was a big culture shot! The family that hired us sent us to the Great Coats Academy in London. We had formal butler training from the former staff of Buckingham Palace. Because we were hired together to work for a private household, we had to learn how to do everything. You have to be an estate manager, house manager, executive housekeeper, professional chef, chauffeur, you name it! We had to learn all of that and wear all of those different hats. We were considered a “domestic couple”. We went in as a couple so we could stay and work together. 

Daniel Breiz: We had to move back to California because my mother passed away. After laying her to rest, we ended up with a family in Santa Barbara for two years. The family had dual residency in Lake Tahoe and Santa Barbara. Eventually the family decided to downsize so we ended up moving back to the Bay Area. We barely came back, and we received a phone call from the agency asking us if we could make it to Los Angeles tomorrow morning for an interview. We did the interview with Darren Star (the American director and producer best known for creating hit series like Beverly Hills 90210, Melrose Place, Sex and the City, and Emily in Paris), who I am still with until now. 

6. When you started your family, how did things change? 

Racquel Rockquemore: Together, we worked for Darren until we got pregnant with our first kid. We lived in Darren’s house, where we had a studio, but it was getting a little cramped and then also privacy wise, it was hard to have guests and entertain them at his house. We moved out and got our own place. 

Daniel Breiz: Darren is such a great person to work with, he’s probably the last family I will work for! 

Racquel Rockquemore: I ended up leaving Darren’s and eventually started taking on other A-listers’ private chef gigs, including Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson. I don't think it gets any better than these two. We probably will just retire and focus on our brick and mortar when they decide they don’t need staff anymore. 

Daniel Breiz We have been really lucky to have clients who, for the most part, have treated us like family. There are some amazing perks that come with the gig like housing, cars, groceries, skiing, flying on private jets, and going along with them on vacations. 

Racquel Rockquemore: We have the families that we currently work for, but we also get asked to cook for people that we have met through our clients, who have either been their guests at dinner parties we’ve cooked for or our previous families that we’ve worked with. 

7. At what point did you start your brick and mortar business, Brique French Toastery? 

Racquel Rockquemore: When I first started working with Dwayne, he put in his requests for cheat meals by Friday. His cheat day is usually on Sunday. His cheat meals are usually double or triple the size of a normal serving. He will usually tell me, “I want chocolate cookies but I want them Rock size, not Kevin Hart size”. If he wants a cookie, I make them the size of your hand. If he wants pancakes, I make 8 to 12 inch pancakes instead of 6 inches. One day, he requested French toast, but he wanted them really thick. With his cheat meals, there are no guidelines or rules or recipes that I have to follow. There are no calories to count, no macros, nothing! I can do whatever I want and just go crazy. 

I made him a brick toast, with homemade whip cream and syrup using Teremana, his tequila brand. The Rock loves peanut butter, coconut and bananas so I added all of that to the recipe. I made a peanut butter coconut Teremana syrup. I also made the whip cream using Teremana. For the crunch factor, I toasted the coconut chips. 

I made him the brick toast and he loved it so much. He loved it so much that he posted it on social media. When he posted it on Instagram, it went viral. Every time he requested the french toast, he would post it!  People would always comment and ask for the recipe, where they could get it, and ask who made it?  I would repost it, but I didn’t put it on blast that I'm his personal chef. IFYKYK.   

Daniel Breiz: That’s when we decided that we should try to make this. One weekend we went away with our cousins, and we did a little demo where we made the brick toast for them to taste test. It turned out to be a hit.   

Racquel Rockquemore: Then, I approached Dwayne and asked if he would mind if I tried to start a business out of his cheat meal. We had a great conversation and he gave his 1,000% blessing. He said, “ F** ya! Go for it, do it. I totally support you! Please do it.” During the pandemic, we started selling from our front door. We took pre-orders and everybody would line up around the block. 

Daniel Breiz: When Dwayne gave us the green light, we started doing the branding. Because we're personal chefs, we couldn’t screw up because we didn’t want to ruin our reputation. So that night, we started! Everything is homegrown. We're still a two-person band. 

Racquel Rockquemore: We wanted to incorporate “brick” in the name. We wanted it to be a brand. It didn't have to be Chef Rocky’s brick toast, but we wanted it to be a brand that felt like the little lady behind the counter just making it. I didn’t want to be the face. 

Daniel Breiz:  We did like a bunch of research on single product companies, so we realized that this could work. We didn’t want to make it complicated. We have this one product with the three toppings. There's no thinking. You only need to think about how many pieces you want. We did everything, including custom packaging and labeling boxes ourselves. 

Racquel Rockquemore: After we branded everything, we started the company and did pop-ups. Dwayne asked me to bring everything to work one day, including the packaging. He wanted to make a video, and I said okay! 

We have a professional kitchen that we cook out of, but for Brique everything was still being made at home at the time. When we made the video, I made the bricks in Dwayne’s kitchen. It’s a short video where Dwayne gave us a shout out.  At that time we had maybe 2,000 followers and it went up to 80,000 followers overnight. Back then, we would only do pop-ups in the Bay Area or on the corner of the street in LA. 

Daniel Breiz: The pop-ups were crazy because they were like sneaker drops. We were selling out in five to ten minutes, and sometimes it would cause our website to crash! We would post that pre-orders were open and just wish folks goodluck. Hundreds of people would drive to the pop-ups, and they came from far away places like New Mexico and Texas just for the brick toast! 

Racquel Rockquemore: At our brick and mortar, people come from all over the world. Yesterday, a London couple came  by. We get customers from all over the world: Asia, UAE, Europe, Canada, and the East Coast. Now at the store, we make it a point to never sell out because we know a lot of people come so far and that's their main place to visit when they come to LA. They made us a priority just to get this French toast. 

8. When did you make the shift from making toast out of your home to opening up shop? 

Racquel Rockquemore: After just two weeks, we got approached because the neighbors were curious about what’s going on at our house. We needed to find a place because all we had was a website at the time. People would drive to our house thinking The Rock was there! I was scared that I would be followed home, so we cut that off then hopped on Peer Space, which allowed us to rent a spot for a fee. A few months after Dwayne posted the video, the Westfield Mall in Century City reached out to us about a space. 

Daniel Breiz: This was during COVID, around 2020-2021. Westfield Century City is our favorite mall, and we never thought we could ever afford the rent there. We were able to get an affordable, introductory price to open up shop. We started with a short term lease downstairs, then they offered us another space upstairs next door to Pixi! That’s where we are now. We really like that there’s a lot of sunshine and more foot traffic. 

We also offer nationwide shipping on Gold Belly. We had a flash sale on Gold Belly in September and we sold out 1,600 pieces in just a few hours. It was crazy! We thought it would just be 200 pieces, but we sold that in just six minutes! The orders just kept coming in, and so it’s still going on until now. 

9. How do you manage all of the logistics for your business? 

Daniel Breiz: To this day,  everything that has to do with Brique, it’s just me and Rocky! We have some employees that help us run the store, but Rocky and I are in there every morning making all the French toast, whip cream, and all the other condiments. Our employees sell the toast for us during mall hours. After our morning shift, we then head to our personal chef clientele. 

Racquel Rockquemore: From time to time we do pop-ups. We did our biggest pop up for Anthony Presents in San Francisco! The Rock was promoting his tequila brand, Teremana. We made over 1,000 pieces in Los Angeles, then we drove them all the way up to the Bay Area. It was crazy! The line went all the way down the street! We sold out so fast! 

Daniel Breiz: Aside from the French toast, in the store we make a Gold Brew. It's our version of a cold brew. It's kind of like the French toast in a bottle. We put in the peanut butter coconut maple syrup, which we also sell. We also make in-house granola that we bag and that’s also available for purchase in store. I don’t have it online yet. Until this day, we still design the packaging and we actually do the packing and shipping ourselves. 

Racquel Rockquemore: For now, one location is fine. That’s all we can handle at this time. Our goal is to scale this and be everywhere, but for now we are still learning. We haven’t put much into PR or marketing, and we are already doing really well.  

10. What's the biggest obstacle that you've had to face while creating Brique? How did you overcome it?

Daniel Breiz: That's easy, staffing! It’s hard to find people that care about the business as much as we do. 

Racquel Rockquemore: More and more people have started to create their own version of the French toast, so there’s pressure there. But we just continue to do what we do.  

Daniel Breiz: A lot of the legal stuff was a challenge. We didn't know much about trademarks and logos. We got a lot of threats, and cease and desist for our logo, but they really had no validation or grounds to come after us. There's a lot of technicalities that we continue to learn about.   

Racquel Rockquemore: People think that The Rock Owns Brique. Because of that, they see it as a money grab. Little do they know, it’s just us. Aside from the legal stuff, the next challenge we face is keeping up with the demand.

11. What's it like to be business partners and life partners? 

Racquel Rockquemore: People always ask us this question. We started out as private chefs together so we worked together, lived together, and we were together. But we don’t work side by side every moment, so it’s never a challenge working together. We each do our own things, and we work together as a team to coordinate – from who does what for Brique down to who’s picking up which kid. 

12. Knowing what you know now, would you do anything differently? 

Daniel Breiz:  We would have wanted to pop up more, which is what we were doing before. We were on our own schedule and could travel anywhere from Hawaii, Las Vegas, Florida, and of course the Bay Area. As soon as we set up shop at Westfield, travel had been completely cut off. 

Racquel Rockquemore: Since it’s just me and Daniel, we can't go anywhere. Having a storefront is great, but when you’re there, you realize you miss the pop up, traveling, and just getting out especially because we are a mom and pop shop. 

I think everything happened the way it was supposed to with our education, our careers, and where we are today. I wouldn't change it especially because we have had the chance to learn, and it’s been a great experience. We can proudly say we've been in this game because when we were cooking we're the only ones out of our entire social group that was cooking back then. Now with the food boom, everybody’s a critic and everyone is a chef, which is great. 

13. What kind of advice would you give to someone who's interested in entering the food and hospitality industry? 

Daniel Breiz: Get the legal stuff right. First get all that right. 

Racquel Rockquemore: Believe in yourself and your talent. If you have an idea, go for it. Once you come up with the product, put it out there and share it with others. We see all the comments and criticism on social media, but it’s not too much. We just kind of ignore it. You can't let that one negative comment trump over the million positive comments. It’s not fair to give attention to negativity. Stick to your product, whatever you're gonna put out there. And don't let any outside noise affect it. 

14. What is one of the biggest lessons that you've learned so far? 

Daniel Breiz: We learned a lot about branding and marketing. Marketing is half the battle. You have this amazing product, but you have to learn how to brand and market it. Imagine if we just put Brique in a plain white box or white bag? No one is going to know who we are or be curious about what’s inside the pretty packaging. We've learned a lot about branding and marketing without going to school or any professional training. We learned by just doing it! 

Racquel Rockquemore: In culinary school, we had one class that touched on business. That’s it! Back then they didn't teach too much about the business side. For what we went to school for, most go in and try to work their way up to being a chef. There’s no need to learn about food photography, catering, or food styling. With the business, we had to learn all of that, and even how to be a videographer and social media manager! 

Daniel Breiz:  We are really proud of our branding. People come up to us to let us know how amazing it is – because the taste and quality matches the product. Not only does it taste amazing, but it looks gorgeous. Yeah. The goal was to be compared and visually recognized like the Tiffany blue bags. Once our customers step outside the store, we hope others will be curious and ask them where they got the special treat. We wanted to also make it affordable where everybody can have it. 

Racquel Rockquemore: Brique is not only available to the super rich. This is for everybody. This is a treat that you can have for yourself or give to someone. Our bricks are TSA approved, so you can bring it and all the toppings packed and you can bring it on the plane with you. We have the purple packaging that’s served with gold forks and knives. We’ve had several people put them in Tupperware and bring them to the Philippines. Then they would assemble the boxes and gift Brique to their friends and family.

15. What does it mean to be Filipino American for you?

Daniel Breiz: Legacy! Since both my mom and dad are deceased, it’s a reminder of them.  My dad used to talk about how they were struggling when they first came to the United States. They had to adjust to American life, and they made so many sacrifices for us to have these amazing opportunities. I got to attend culinary school and my brother and sister went to universities. My mom did so much to send us to private schools. 

Racquel Rockquemore: I'm so proud to be Filipino and especially because I am from Vallejo and San Francisco. We were surrounded by Filipinos growing up. I never felt like an outcast because we were everywhere. It was normal for me to have all these Filipino restaurants, and to eat Filipino food every day. Now, we get to share our food with others!    

16. Do you make Filipino food for your clients?  

Daniel Breiz: Yes, we're making lumpia for one of the appetizers for our client’s dinner party tomorrow. 

Racquel Rockquemore: The Rock's mom loves chicken adobo! A lot of our clients also like tinola. 

17. What’s the last meal you would have on this earth?

Daniel Breiz: Chevy’s! My God, we love Chevy’s chips and salsa. Chevy’s is almost gone, with just a few standing. We grew up on Chevy's. My last meal would be Chevy's and some chicken wings from anywhere. 

Racquel Rockquemore:  If this is the last meal, I am going to eat one of everything I love. The three hitters I love in San Francisco: the pork and pate sandwich from Saigon Sandwich Shop, fried chicken and steak from Chevy’s. I would also eat crab legs and pizza!

19. Where can people find you? 

Daniel Breiz: You can head to our website or find us on Gold Belly. On Instagram, you can find me @thefreshchefofbelair. 

 Racquel Rockquemore: You can follow us on Instagram @brique_la and @rockymercedes. 

As The Rock says, “Don’t cheat yourself, treat yourself”. If you’re in Los Angeles or plan to visit, head to Brique French Toastery located in the Westfield Century City Mall at 10250 Santa Monica Blvd., Suite #2390, Los Angeles, CA 90067. They’re located on level 2 next to Nordstrom, Din Tai Fung, and Pixi. They’re also available on UberEats and DoorDash!

---

Written by Jennifer Redondo

Co-Founder and Co-Author of In Her Purpose

---