Where to eat now to support L.A.’s Oaxacan community
Los Angeles is still reeling from appalling comments among City Council members in a private recorded conversation revealed on Sunday. L.A. is home to one of the largest Oaxacan populations outside Mexico, so when Councilmember Nury Martinez made racist remarks about Indigenous residents from Oaxaca, the community — and L.A. at large — was rightfully outraged.
L.A. is Oaxacalifornia, and we’re here to celebrate it every day. The large, mountainous southern state of Oaxaca in Mexico is culturally and culinarily rich and diverse. Two-thirds of the population identifies as Indigenous and nearly a third speak an Indigenous language, of which there are more than a dozen represented in the state, as well as dozens more linguistic variants.
The largest Indigenous group in Oaxaca is the Zapotecs, and they are strongly represented in Los Angeles and throughout California — by one estimate, there are 200,000 Zapotecs living in Los Angeles County alone. Oaxacan immigrants and people of Oaxacan descent are strongly represented in L.A.’s restaurant industry — as restaurant owners, chefs and employees.
Cecina, memelas, tetelas, banana-leaf-wrapped tamales, tasajo, tlayudas and, naturally, one of Oaxaca’s seven classic moles are all foods one might expect at a Oaxacan restaurant — washed down with an agua fresca, chocolate or corn-based atole beverage. We’ve assembled just a few of our favorite places to try Oaxacan cooking in L.A. The list is by no means exhaustive but is a good place to start.
Showing Places
(Silvia Razgova / For The Times)
Gish Bac
Arlington Heights Mexican $$
Behold Maria Ramos’ tlayuda Gish Bac — a circle of life layered with pureed black beans, lacy Oaxacan string cheese, grilled steak, chicken and chile-marinated pork, with slices of tomato, avocado and strips of rajas arranged like spokes radiating from a wheel’s center. The crackling, yielding textures, best enjoyed the moment the tlayuda hits the table, are life-affirming. Then shift your attention to barbacoa. Ramos comes from a family of barbacoa masters and wields her finesse over two distinctly Oaxacan variations: barbacoa enchilada, goat long-simmered with guajillo chiles and served in its ruddy broth, and barbacoa blanco, a less saucy version of steamed lamb permeated with cumin and oregano. Both are wonderful. Remember Gish Bac for a serene breakfast as well, relishing enmoladas layered with chorizo or tasajo (jerky-like salt-cured beef) on the shaded back patio strung with red and silver papeles picados.
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(Trip Davis / Gjelina)
Gjelina
Venice Italian $$
Gjelina isn’t a Oaxacan restaurant, but the food has never been better, largely thanks to Juan Hernandez, executive chef for the Gjelina Group. He’s spending more time in the mothership’s kitchen while he waits to reopen Valle, the group’s Oaxaca-inspired restaurant he conceived with fellow chef Pedro Aquino. The format at Gjelina hasn’t changed: a dozen front-and-center vegetable dishes (not including the salads rowdy with herbs), pastas, pizzas, the obligatory pan-seared salmon and butterscotch pot de crème. Everything tastes sharper somehow. The romesco atop gorgeous dragon tongue beans has extra nutty, vinegary depth; the mushroom toast glossed with crème fraîche is richer than ever. At Valle, Hernandez and Aquino, both longtime chefs for the company, called upon their Oaxacan roots for delicate squash-blossom-filled quesadillas, tlayudas con cecina (pork collar marinated in ruddy chile), lamb barbacoa and a vegan take on mole amarillo.
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(Mariah Tauger / Los Angeles Times)
Guelaguetza
Harvard Heights Mexican $$
A recent lunch at America’s most famous Oaxacan restaurant, founded by Fernando Lopez and now run by his family, made for a reassuring couple of hours. The sense of community had returned to the sprawling, color-splotched dining room; multigenerational families were as deep into conversations as they were into the tlayudas wreathed with strings of oval sausages. The agua del día was tamarindo, taut and puckery. Queso fresco and epazote gushed from crackling quesadillas fritas; the chapulines gently crunched. And Guelagetza’s mole negro was as miraculous as ever — a composite of chiles, nuts, plantains, raisins, herbs and sweet and peppery spices fused into a hauntingly delicious substance. At the end of the meal, before walking out into the sunshine, buy some of the first-rate packaged mole negro paste the restaurant sells.
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Juice Bar and Mini Market La Oaxaqueña serves as a tiendita as well as a juice bar that serves tacos, burritos Jello and other treats.
(Stephanie Breijo/Los Angeles Times)
Juice Bar & Mini Market La Oaxaqueña
Hollywood Juice Bar
The specialty at this Hollywood tiendita is the rainbow of fresh juice in an array of flavors, but Juice Bar & Mini Market La Oaxaqueña is also home to tasajo tacos, cecina tortas, chicken burritos, fruit salads in options such as strawberries and cream, and ice cream scoops, sundaes and milkshakes all served from beneath rows of papel picado. Fresh fruit is also sold here — piled high in boxes of pomegranates, citrus, apples, bananas, watermelons and more right at the entrance — as are home goods such as clay mugs and molcajetes. Make your way to the counter and place an order for concoctions such as cactus juice with cucumber, aloe, apple and pineapple, or the popular mixture of ginger, celery, cucumber, kale and cantaloupe, then peruse the aisles for trinkets to take home.
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(Stephanie Breijo/Los Angeles Times)
La Morenita Oaxaqueña
Koreatown Mexican Cuisine
Since 2006 La Morenita Oaxaqueña has quietly served excellent tlayudas scented with the char of the grill, long-simmered moles ladled over chips and enchiladas and meats, and handmade memelas spread with pork fat and beans, all from the corner of a Koreatown strip mall with little signage, no website and no social media. The lack of visibility hasn’t fazed the Oaxacan-food specialist, however: Tables remain full, a testament to the attention paid here to the cuisine’s balance of spice and grillwork. The mole coloradito is a specialty, but there are plenty of gems spread across the sizeable menu, including a Oaxaca-style empanada not served as a pinched-edged hand pie but a plate-sized swath of handmade, made-to-order corn tortilla that’s loosely folded over fresh cheese and fillings such as flor de calabaza (squash blossom), chapulines (grasshoppers) or huitlacoche (corn smut). Those looking for a bit of everything can and should order the parrillada Oaxaqueña, a showstopping, shareable platter in the form of a tabletop grill heaped with shrimp, cactus, tasajo, chorizo, cecina and more.
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(Myung J. Chun / Los Angeles Times)
Madre West Hollywood
Mexican $$$
Even if you’re only peering into the bar through the picture window, the rows of bottles whose contents glow silvery in the backlight say everything: The collection of mezcal (and other agave spirits) is as prominent here as the breadth of Oaxacan dishes. This is the third local Madre restaurant from Oaxaca native Ivan Vasquez, one of the foremost mezcal evangelists in America. Note that the drink list mentions only a fraction of the available selections; ask a server for a style and a price and the bartenders will happily pick something off-menu and mind-opening. As for food: Go hard on the masa classics. The tlayuda is textbook, the tortilla griddled, folded and sealed with quesillo, surrounded by a platter of chorizo, thin steak and marinated pork. Try a thick, satisfying memela spread with glossy pureed black bean tesajo. And consider visiting on a Saturday or Sunday for the weekend-only lamb barbacoa with its hints of nutty-minty avocado leaf and cinnamon. It pairs ideally with a favorite small-batch mezcal: 5 Sentidos Pechuga de Mole Poblano.
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Poncho’s Tlayudas
Historic South-Central Mexican $
At the beloved South Los Angeles pop-up run by Alfonso “Poncho” Martinez and Odilia Romero, ask for the crisp-edged, hubcap-size folded tlayudas. The tortillas come from Oaxaca, made by families who have been growing, milling and nixtamalizing corn for generations. Martinez builds a tlayuda first by painting his tortilla canvas with asiento, a fresh, toasted lard he renders himself. He spreads over refritos. Next comes quesillo. Martinez or his grill man, Alberto Vasquez, will lay the round tlayuda on a grate over live mesquite coals. If you’ve ordered the option of tres carnes (and you should strongly consider it), Martinez or Vasquez will crumble over a generous blanket of chorizo. Shredded cabbage goes on last, and then the tlayuda is folded in half on the grill, warmed for a couple minutes longer and finally whacked in two.
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(Jacqueline Pinedo / Los Angeles Times)
Rocio's Mexican Kitchen
Bell Gardens Eatery $$
Chef-owner Rocío Camacho is known as the mole goddess for a reason. Originally from Huajuapan de Leon, Oaxaca, Camacho regularly offers a dozen moles at her Bell Gardens restaurant. This is where you can construct your own mole plate, mixing and matching your protein of choice with one of Camacho‘s beautifully complex moles. The chile relleno drowned in a few ladles of the manchamanteles, a fiery, smoky mole the shade of the deepest, darkest umber, is a favorite.
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(Mariah Tauger / Los Angeles Times)
X’tiosu Kitchen
Boyle Heights Mexican Lebanese $
| 2019 | #87
| 2020
Brothers Ignacio and Felipe Santiago gave Los Angeles the gift of X’tiosu, a casual Boyle Heights restaurant that combines Lebanese and Oaxacan flavors (the restaurant was favorably reviewed by The Times in 2019). The Santiagos are proud Zapotecs, the largest indigenous group in the Mexican state of Oaxaca. They blend the cuisines seamlessly in dishes like tacos with chicken shawarma or falafel fillings. Try the Oaxacan hummus, wherein whipped black beans give the dip a muted denim sheen, like a blue corn tortilla. The tabouleh Oaxaca salad, which features a healthy does of chopped herbs and slick nopales, is bright and refreshing.
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Eat your way across L.A.
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