Best Mexican Restaurant In LA...Is In Costa Mesa

COSTA MESA, CA — Thank heaven for Cinco De Mayo! And all things Mexican food. It took a Pulitzer Prize-winning food critic to decide that Los Angeles's Restaurant of the Year is actually not in Los Angeles at all. Critic Jonathan Gold picked his 2018 Los Angeles Times "Restaurant Of The Year" as a humble yet exceedingly scrumptious taco joint in Costa Mesa.

Taco Maria and chef Carlos Salgado were praised for "regarding tortillas with a seriousness familiar to any fanatical French baker, using perfect seasonal produce and treating regional Mexican dishes with both imagination and respect."

The Orange County restaurant was described by the Times critic as an "almost anti-luxurious dining room, in a Costa Mesa hipster mall, an hour's drive from many of his fans and colleagues."

That, Gold said, is "almost a miracle."

"Taco Maria has given not only Los Angeles, but his native Orange County a sense of place a place where roasted guinea hens with mole, tortillas stuffed with sturgeon and asparagus velout with spring garlic stand beside crocks of mushroom chorizo and marinated Baja blood clams."

The pick was named to kick off the Los Angeles Times Food Bowl, a monthlong celebration of edibles, starting this week.

According to he Taco Maria website, Chef Cámara opened Contramar two decades ago while studying art history in college in Mexico City. Now Contramar is an institution for fresh seafood, and Cala is renowned for its use of sustainable California ingredients.

For more information, visit: www.tacomaria.com

City News Service contributed to this report.

Photo, Olivia Booth, Patch