L.A.'s wildest taco pop-up opens its debut restaurant in El Sereno
The walls are painted black and decorated with Slayer posters and live concert photos, while a set of faux human skulls hangs over the grill and a five-seat counter. The trompo-cooked meats are rich with black marinades, the fountain on the patio cries “blood” and the “goth” taco comes served in an inky tortilla, tinged by ash.
Evil Cooks — the L.A. pop-up lauded for its genre-bending tacos and omakase — opened a new restaurant in El Sereno befitting its chef-founders' black-metal inspiration.
Husband-and-wife team Alex “Pobre Diablo” Garcia and Elvia “La Bruja” Huerta, both of whom used to play in bands, make some of the best and most creative tacos in L.A.
They're now serving their famous Poseidon octopus al pastor, flan tacos and more just blocks from their home, where they’ve hosted pop-ups and their celebrated Kamikaze, a taco-leaning omakase event. They've garnered widespread acclaim, including a spot on the L.A. Times 101 List and, earlier this year, a James Beard Award semifinalist nod.
After years of squeezing the pop-up's customers into the front yard of their home and of shuttling stacked-high black trompos to a weekly appearance at Smorgasburg in the Arts District, they've found a permanent space that they hope will prove valuable to not only fans but the whole neighborhood.
“I've always said that I wanted to bring something nice to the community, to El Sereno,” said Huerta, who was born and raised there. “Everyone has to get out of here to go to something a little nicer, so having that for everyone is great, and I know everyone's excited for that.”
Currently they're offering a menu of signature tacos, burritos and tortas, most of which riff on the black-metal themes or subvert classics, such as the McSatan cheeseburger taco. These can currently be found during dinner and will make up the lunch menu when it launches.
On Dec. 3, a more involved evening menu, called A Corazon Abierto, will offer entrées from past omakase menus.
Huerta’s favorite dish, the tom-yum-spiced aguachile, will be on the evening-only menu. So will Garcia’s favorite, the baklava Wellington: pork rib in phyllo dough with a mushroom-and-pistachio duxelle, topped with imported Persian cotton candy and served with a side of lengua au jus.
Read more: LA Times Today: Evil Cooks
There will be green chorizo potstickers, the Poseidon reimagined as risotto, a Japanese noodle bowl showcasing a bright rendition of carne en su jugo, and the whopping Devil’s Rib, a behemoth tomahawk steak speared with a knife and served on a wooden cutting board with fresh tortillas and pipian chimichurri.
“All these dishes are not traditional Mexican,” Garcia said on the restaurant's all-black patio, where a statue of a skeleton clutching an hourglass overlooks roughly 20 seats. “It's a mix of L.A. and our journey through the kitchens.”
The black, Yucatán-inspired marinade that coats their famous iterations of octopus, beef and pork is made “like a ritual,” Huerta said, burning the chiles, cacao, tortillas and spices.
“Food is like music because at the end of the day, a taco is like a song,” Garcia said. “The tortilla is your drums, the base of it, and then here comes the bass and you put some carne on it. Then you put some salsa and that’s the guitar, and then you put a little bit of the other toppings that you want to shine on it and that’s the solo of the guitar. No matter where you see it from, they make sense, how you put it together.”
But it took some time for Garcia and Huerta to find their rhythm.
After nearly two decades working his way through L.A. and Long Beach restaurants, Garcia was burned out. In order to de-stress he began a side business designing black-metal-inspired T-shirts for chefs and called it Evil Cooks. Then, after multiple private requests for catering, he attempted his own pop-up. Huerta, a Cordon Bleu-trained chef who worked in the UCLA dining halls for about a decade, helped out on the side, and they used the T-shirt company name for their tacos too.
Growth was slow, with multiple breweries and other venues opting to host pop-ups that had a more established following. But after a few months Evil Cooks began to pick up steam. In 2019 a flan taco served during L.A. Taco’s annual Taco Madness competition caught the eye of Smorgasburg’s organizers, and the pair landed a spot at the Arts District food festival (Garcia and Huerta will still appear at Smorgasburg on Sundays but plan to pare down the menu there by roughly 80%).
“We always said it’s not supposed to be a restaurant,” Garcia said. “We always wanted to be on the street doing the pop-ups, being a rebel. But we're getting older and, you know, carrying things around, you can feel it now.”
“It hurts the body,” Huerta added.
Last year they began to wonder if a bricks-and-mortar might be in Evil Cooks’ best interest. In addition to the wear of setting up and dismantling their pop-up weekly — which included constructing multiple trompos, tables and tents — the duo felt constricted. They’d purchased their own molino to grind and process corn into masa for tortillas, but they needed more space. The electricity required to run their equipment took its toll on their house, and an electrician friend had to install additional circuit breakers.
Read more: 14 of the most creative and unique tacos to try from the 101 Best Tacos guide
They hunted for spaces in the San Gabriel Valley but dreamed of staying closer to home. When El Ruso owner and fellow taquero Walter Soto tipped them off to a space just blocks from their pop-up location, they toured it and signed the lease within a week.
They’re hoping to host future iterations of their ambitious maiz-focused, 32-course annual dinner, Disciples of the Corn, as well as smaller collaborative events. The restaurant also will serve as the home of their Kamikaze tasting menu.
Kamikaze began three years ago as an all-you-can-eat night where $25 bought an array of Evil Cooks tacos: whatever Huerta and Garcia felt like cooking. Garcia began creating more elaborate options on the spot, often using ingredients from their backyard garden, a horticultural legacy begun by Huerta’s parents years ago. Tacos were filled with the squash blossoms and fruits and chiles and greens grown behind their house. The event grew into their irreverent taco omakase, where reservations filled up almost instantly and continued to do so until its last iteration in October.
Early next year the couple plan to reprise Kamikaze at the five counter seats overlooking the grill — first come, first served and no preconceived menus, just Garcia and Huerta's form of culinary freestyling through new dishes and small bites.
“Freestyling is our thing because it feels more intense,” Garcia said. “Many people love it and people hate it, but you're letting your soul speak to the person.”
Evil Cooks is open in El Sereno at 3333 N. Eastern Ave., Los Angeles, 5 to 10 p.m. Tuesday to Saturday, with lunch service coming soon.
This story originally appeared in Los Angeles Times.
