When Jason Santos is not out nights running one of his four successful Boston restaurants, Buttermilk & Bourbon Boston, Buttermilk & Bourbon Watertown, Citrus & Salt, and ButterBird, he is still in chef mode.
The blue-haired chef with his larger-than-life personality is so passionate about cooking that on a recent rare evening at home in Burlington, Massachusetts, he pulled out hominy and dried chilies to make pozole, and other nights it has been hand-rolled pasta.
Next Wave 2026 · Jason Santos
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Santos, who lives with his wife Thuy and their daughter, Teagan, in the restaurant-laden suburb, is constantly leveling up in his career. He divides his time between his restaurants, cookbook publishing, various culinary events, and appearing on the popular Paramount TV hit show, “Bar Rescue,” where he rehabilitates failing restaurants and bars as the host alongside Jon Taffer. Santos gained national recognition competing on chef Gordon Ramsay’s hit show “Hell’s Kitchen.”
From Restaurant to Cookbook
Earlier this year Santos launched his third cookbook, Citrus & Salt: Coastal Mexican Fare from Boston’s Hottest Restaurant, bringing the high-energy, citrus-driven flavors of his restaurant, Citrus & Salt, to home cooks. He made sure to include the recipe for its famous Off the Cob Flamin’ Hot Street Corn in the cookbook. “Our street corn, which to me is the kitschiest thing we do, people go nuts over it. It’s such a simple thing,” says Santos. “I just sort of did it as a fun thing once, but it’s still the most well-received and still our number one seller.”
Photograph by Anthony Tieuli
Bringing Citrus & Salt Home to Burlington
Santos is not stopping his Citrus & Salt expansion with the cookbook. Later this fall he will open a new location of Citrus & Salt at 19 Third Ave. in Burlington in the 3rd Ave shopping and lifestyle center.
“I’ve never been this excited for a restaurant in my life. It’s going to be so insanely stunning. I just can’t wait,” Santos gushes, talking further about choosing Burlington as a location: “It is the fact that I live there, I’m vested there, and my daughter goes to school there. It’s important to me because community is a big deal for me, and the fact that I can give back to a community I actually live in is nice.”
The Burlington location will have the restaurant’s signature bright pops of color, fun, Instagrammable moments, artful sugar skulls, flamingos, and flowers hand-painted throughout. The suburban twist on the 6,000-square-foot space will include a giant patio, a beachy-looking outside bar, and a function room. The function space will double as a lounge on the weekends complete with a DJ booth and food service until midnight. In addition to the many iconic Citrus & Salt dishes, the Burlington menu will have a lot more large-format items, think shellfish towers and a whole roasted carnitas board.
“It’s just a lot of really fun stuff. We are really trying to have fun there,” says Santos.
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Dining and Cooking