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The U.S. city has roots in Latin America — and is still shaped by its influence at every turn, from architecture to food trends.
This article was produced by National Geographic Traveller (UK).
You wouldn’t know it from the sea of skyscrapers hemmed in by traffic-clogged freeways. Or from the flashy Hollywood studios, the multi-million-dollar celebrity homes or the Dior parading down Rodeo Drive. But a little over 200 years ago, Los Angeles was a wilderness, just sea and mountains and big sky. Back then, what’s now considered the quintessential US city wasn’t even in America, but in Mexico.
“In 1781, 44 settlers moved to this area from New Spain, further south,” explains Edgar Garcia, as we wander through El Pueblo on a sunny morning. A couple of blocks bookended by Downtown’s office buildings and grand Union Station, sandwiched between Chinatown and Little Tokyo, this small district is the oldest part of LA. It’s where the global metropolis was born. Now protected, the pretty, low-rise buildings and streets of El Pueblo de Los Angeles Historical Monument (the area’s full name) form the heart of the city’s Mexican-heritage community. “When the settlers arrived, this was the frontier of the frontier,” continues Edgar, the monument’s assistant manager. “They had to resettle several times before they built the church, around 1820.”
The church, along with several other early-19th-century buildings, is still here. It’s Sunday morning and families are pouring towards its whitewashed exterior, distinctly Spanish in its simple curves and tiled roof. Nearby, in a square containing a bandstand and fringed with thick-trunked trees, artisans sell sweets dusted in the Mexican lime-chilli seasoning Tajín. A plaque lists the names of the 44 founding pobladores, or settlers — mostly impoverished people driven to find a new life at the cutting edge of the Spanish empire.
El Pueblo de Los Angeles was just one of several settlements founded in the 18th century along the coast of California. In 1821, when Mexico declared independence from Spain, Alta California — as this region was then known — and its clutch of villages and religious missions also left the empire. The Mexican-American war (1846–1848) led to Alta California’s annexation and the area became a US free state. As a new, predominantly English-speaking LA Downtown grew up alongside it, El Pueblo fell into disrepair and disrepute.
Every community has its political meeting place — somewhere for handshakes over good food, see-and-be-seen socialising and backroom deals. I’m told by Edgar that in El Pueblo, this place is El Paseo Inn. Founded in the 1930s, it’s occupied its current Olvera Street location since 1953 and has been run by Don Carmacho’s family since the 1980s. The great and the good of LA’s Hispanic community have dined under its adobe-style wood ceilings — as have a number of other high-profile guests. “George H W Bush sat at that table right there,” Don tells me, pointing across the private dining room. “It was around 5pm one evening in the 1990s and my dad called me up at home, saying I had to get down to the restaurant quick because the president’s in town and fancies some chips and salsa.”
We grab our own table in the main dining area, festooned in lights and wooden wagon wheels. By the front door, a chef is making tortillas by hand, and on tables all around multi-gen families and groups of friends scoop up bowlfuls of guacamole. “People have a tradition to visit every Sunday,” Don tells me. “They go to church with their families, then they come here. Family is so important to our culture and we want to honour that — which means providing the meal they’ve come to expect.” Don is a dealer in nostalgia as much as nourishment, supplying the familiar dishes generations of locals have grown up with.
As my carne asada tacos arrive, I ask Don how he squares such tradition with the need to make changes, and he shrugs. “We try to make things a bit healthier sometimes, or we might use Mexican crema [similar to sour cream] rather than more cheese. We’re not the food you find in Mexico, nor are we Tex Mex. There’s menudo beef tripe stew on the menu, but also fajitas.” The aim is to find a happy place where the likes of Don’s parents and tourists who rarely eat Mexican can all find something they like.
Olvera Street may be the epicentre of Mexican food in LA, but venture further afield and you’ll find Latin culinary influences everywhere. On Hollywood Boulevard, hot-dog vendors top their grills with jalapeños. In new Downtown hotel Conrad Los Angeles, the star breakfast is tortilla with egg white and caviar. In upmarket West Hollywood, restaurant Gracias Madre cooks vegan Mexican classics with cashew cheese and soy chorizo.
South of Hollywood Boulevard, chef Wes Avila serves his own high-end interpretation of coastal Tulum cuisine in his restaurant, Ka’teen. With outdoor seating and tropical greenery, it has a laid-back Yucatán atmosphere but is just a stone’s throw from the Hollywood Walk of Fame.
“Mexican food is getting trendier,” he says, explaining how after making his name in taco trucks, a bricks-and-mortar restaurant felt like the natural next step. “Tacos, for example, have been elevated as chefs use better meat cuts and more seasonal produce.” Wes points out that pricing is a battle, as diners unfairly expect Hispanic food — Mexican, in particular — to be cheap. “People complain if you charge $6 for a taco. But it’s perception. If you disassemble that taco and put those ingredients on a plate,” Wes says, “suddenly you could charge triple the price.” Diners are, however, happy to shell out for seafood, which is why he says dishes like ceviche have become popular in higher-end Mexican restaurants.
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