Mexican

plant-festooned roof downtown at Cha Cha Chá, a sprawling Mexican restaurant that opened in March. Sure, the waiters wear masks and face shields and there was a temperature check upon entry, but the servers also come bearing shots of mezcal, there were

you add the citrus at the end, it’s super alive,” he says. Carrot flan is a small thrill, nodding to carrot cake but wholely its own dessert. At full capacity, Cha Cha Chá will have seating for 300, the majority of it outside. Mexico City restaurateur

The name Enrique Olvera might not ring a bell for everyone. But to anyone who closely follows restaurant news beyond our own zip codes will likely perk up at the mention of Pujol, Olvera’s beautiful flagship in Mexico City. The chef is arguably the

most famous culinary figure in Latin America, renown for modernizing Mexican cuisine by mining his country’s rich but often forgotten heritage. Olvera’s profile has been rising in the U.S. over the last decade, having opened very successful restaurants

at Tamales Elena y Antojitos, illuminates the Afro-Mexican cooking of Costa Chica, a hilly stretch along the southern coast of the state of Guerrero between Acapulco and the border of Oaxaca. The African heritage among the region’s population is

little known to the world, even in other areas of Mexico; 2020 marks the first year Afro-Mexicans will be included as part of the country’s census. “Guerrero is the California of the United States — a melting pot of cultures,” says Maria Irra, one of

Tamales Elena y Antojitos   

[It’s here: The Los Angeles Times’ 101 restaurants, dishes, people and ideas that define how we eat in 2020.] From birria de res to tlayudas, Los Angeles is one of the world’s great bastions of Mexican food culture. These 21 restaurants from the

2020 101 restaurants guide are some of the best examples of Mexican culinary brilliance in Southern California. It’s difficult to conjure a more perfect food than the birria de res burrito at Burritos La Palma: a sleek goblet of spiced, long-stewed

When Vartan Abgaryan’s business partners wanted to open a Mexican restaurant in Venice, the Armenian American chef had to call for backup. “I’ve been in L.A. for 30 years. I’ve eaten Mexican food for 30 years. But it’s a different thing growing up

with it in your family,” says 38-year-old Abgaryan. So he turned to a young Mexican American chef he’d known for years: 31-year-old Mesraim Llanez. The result of their collaboration is Nueva, a cheery neighborhood cantina with a spacious patio and a

traditionally sold from baskets in Mexico, as the name implies) and thus perfect for this moment. Pickup or delivery. 6503 Pacific Blvd., Huntington Park, (323) 387-4156, and other locations, info.laliveapps.com/m/tortaselrey Zacatecas Restaurant Times writer

Broken Spanish    Burritos La Palma    Cacao Mexicatessen    Carnitas El Momo    Coni'Seafood    Gish Bac    Guelaguetza    Guerrilla Tacos    Madre    Mariscos Jalisco    Mi Ranchito Veracruz    Mole de los Reyes    Poncho's Tlayudas    El Ruso    Sonoratown    Tacos 1986    Tacos Ensenada    Teddy's Red Tacos    Tortas Ahogadas El Rey    Zacatecas Restaurant   

us were empty then. I always loved and appreciated the amazing Chinese food I got to eat in Monterey Park and Alhambra, and the great Mexican food in East L.A. because my parents worked in Montebello. I never had a bad taco growing up. My dad was

.'s most vital new Mexican restaurant. — Lucas Kwan Peterson has a question: Is Kewpie the world's best mayonnaise? — Garrett Snyder on the trio of L.A. winemakers harvesting historic grapes at San Gabriel Mission. — I suggest bookmarking Ben Mims

A new restaurant wants to expand Angelenos’ ideas of Mexican food and culture. Tamales Elena y Antojitos, which opened in Bell Gardens in July, specializes in food from the region of Guerrero, and is being hailed as the city’s first Afro-Mexican

restaurant. “We are a mix of indigenous Mexican and African,” explains Maria Irra, whose mother, Maria Elena Lorenzo (pictured below), is the restaurant’s owner and chef. “There were a lot of slaves that decided to have their freedom in Mexico.” Chef Maria

, Pablo Cruz, is a prolific producer from Mexico City, who I met through a colleague. We have talked about working on a food project together for years. The first phase of research involved creating a taco bible, or a magnum opus of taco history that kind

of served as a basis for the screenwriters working in Mexico, because this was a project from Netflix Latin America. The second phase was scouting for it. My deadline was at the same time I was writing the Oaxaca cookbook with Bricia Lopez, which

molinos in town back then. By the time I left Mexico, the mills were disappearing and they were being replaced by tortillerias. Tell us a little about the family kitchen. We had a wood-fire stove, so a lot would depend on whether we could find kindling. My

was a bracero (one of the millions of Mexican guest workers in the U.S. during World War II). He was an agricultural worker and traveled back and forth between the two countries for many years. He already had a visa and he wanted us to get our papers