Latest news with #WesAvila
Eater
a day ago
- Entertainment
- Eater
Wes Avila's Swanky West Hollywood Mexican Steakhouse Suddenly Closes
is an editor of the Southern California/Southwest region, who covers the evolving landscape of LA's food scene. Wes Avila's Monterrey-inspired West Hollywood steakhouse, MXO, suddenly shuttered this summer after less than a year open. A representative for the restaurant initially stated that the closure was temporary, but later confirmed the restaurant's permanent closure on July 21, 2025. MXO has not shared any further public statement about the closure, but there are multiple comments on its Instagram from people who allegedly had reservations and showed up to find it closed. The last activity from the restaurant on Instagram was from June 9, 2025. Avila, who is the current chef at Ka'Teen in Hollywood and former operator of Guerrilla Tacos and Angry Egret Dinette, opened MXO with restaurateur Giancarlo Pagani and Sam Nazarian's SBE in September 2024. The restaurant opened as an upscale Mexican steakhouse, serving Monterrey-inspired cooking in a space designed by Jae Omar of Jae Omar Design, a firm known for its work on celebrity homes. Jakob N. Layman At the restaurant, Avila served whole cuts of dry-aged steak such as porterhouse and rib-eye, alongside chile Colorado short ribs served with frijoles and tortillas. A handful of tacos were available as well, filled with fish, chicken, and rib-eye. Avila prepared a show-stopping birria beef martillo as one of MXO's signature dishes, featuring a whole braised wagyu shank served with consommé. Smaller starters included oysters, queso fundido, and Caesar-style braised cabbage. 'LA needs a Mexican steakhouse,' Avila told Eater LA when MXO first opened. The closure leaves Avila, who has been an influential force in Los Angeles's dining scene for years, with Ka'Teen as his only restaurant in the city, as well as a bar and taco lounge in Kyoto, Japan called Piopiko. There's no news yet on what the recently renovated MXO space, located just a block away from Nobu on La Cienega, will become next. Eater LA All your essential food and restaurant intel delivered to you Email (required) Sign Up By submitting your email, you agree to our Terms and Privacy Notice . This site is protected by reCAPTCHA and the Google Privacy Policy and Terms of Service apply. MXO Location 826 North La Cienega Boulevard, Los Angeles, California 90069 External Link Phone (323) 805-0696 Link Wes Avila's latest project is an impressive West Hollywood steakhouse inspired by his time in Monterrey, Mexico. Opened in partnership with Giancarlo Pagani and Sam Nazarian's SBE, MXO focuses on wood-fired grilling, large-format meats, and of course, tacos. The birria beef martillo made with wagyu beef and served with with marrow and consomé is a highlight of the menu; it feeds a group of eight to 12 and costs $275. Antojitos include Okinawa sweet potato tacos, queso fundido, and a grilled cabbage Caesar. — Rebecca Roland, editor, Eater Southern California/Southwest
Los Angeles Times
2 days ago
- Los Angeles Times
Amid ICE raids and uncertainty, chef Wes Avila cooks to feel closer to his parents
When Wes Avila misses his parents, cooking their signature dishes helps to comfort him. And lately the founder of Guerrilla Tacos, the upstart taqueria that became a leader of the Alta California movement, has been thinking of his parents frequently. His mother, who passed away in 1995, is often on his mind. But his father, still alive, recently left for Mexico. Though Jose Luis Avila is a legal resident of the U.S., he feared being wrongfully swept up in the ICE raids that have put Los Angeles on edge for weeks. It was better for his dad, Avila said, to temporarily leave town and avoid even the possibility of it. 'They're even picking up people who have legal status, and they're just coming right back,' said Wes Avila, the chef of Mexican restaurants MXO and Ka'teen. 'Just the stress of all that, it's kind of a pain. So he left for Mexico.' His father owns a home and a plot of land in his birthplace of Durango. Now in retirement, he visits it frequently to tend to the property and his garden there. But this trip felt different, spurred by dread instead of a need for relaxation. Avila encouraged the trip: He couldn't stomach the thought of his father being apprehended while out on a hike or shopping. So Avila, missing his dad, cooks a Durango-style stew studded with beef, potatoes and chiles: a taste of family while they're apart. 'When he's not around, that's something I like to make,' Wes Avila said. 'It connects me to him. I talk to him every other day, and we have a very close relationship.' Avila's father made his way to California in 1974 after cousins in Whittier recommended he join them in working toward a more prosperous future. He landed a job at a car wash, then at a paper factory, where he remained until his retirement. Shortly after his arrival in L.A. he met his wife, Julia 'Judy' Luz Alicia Ponce Avila. They married the following year and soon started a family. In addition to L.A.'s sprawl of pan-cultural cuisine, Avila was raised on his parents' cooking. His father would cook menudo for Christmas and occasionally barbecue, but his caldillo was a staple year-round: a meaty soup sopped up with fresh tortillas picked up from specialists on his way home from work. His mother cooked more frequently, and one of the children's favorite dishes featured thick, creamy avocado sauce draped over freshly fried beef taquitos. His mother was born in Lincoln Heights with a Texan father and a Concho grandmother. Avila feels the dish encapsulates influences from all of these roots, as well as 1960s Americana (sometimes she'd use canned beef in lieu of fresh meat). Cooking these dishes, Avila said, is also a way to find comfort during a time of precarity and fear in L.A.'s restaurant industry — in part due to the threat of ICE raids, and also general business instability as customers, vendors and staff remain home. When possible, he said, dine at independent restaurants. 'Go and support your local food stands,' Avila said. 'Go and support mom-and-pop restaurants, because they need that. 'As a restaurateur and as a chef, our restaurants are suffering as well but ours have a little bit more backing to be able to keep going, as opposed to some of these that are running on their own. Just go eat. And don't let these guys [ICE] into your restaurants.' Eating out this week? Sign up for Tasting Notes to get our restaurant experts' insights and off-the-cuff takes on where they're dining right now. This Durango-inspired stew comes together quickly — and can come together even more rapidly with the use of time-saving chiles pasados. It's also an adaptable recipe: This stew is hearty and satisfying on its own, but Avila recommends using it as a filling in burritos the recipe. Cook time: About 1 hour. Serves 6 to 8. This was a favorite dish of Avila's mom, Judy, and her children's favorite dish to eat at home. The cuts of meat can be flexible — so flexible, in fact, that even canned beef could do for the filling. Once freshly fried, these taquitos get smothered in a thick avocado sauce, which Avila likens to the aguacate found in L.A. Tex-Mex restaurants in the '80s and ' the recipe. Cook time: About 2 hours, depending on choice of meat. Makes 16 taquitos.
Forbes
14-07-2025
- Entertainment
- Forbes
Where To Eat And Drink In Los Angeles This Summer
Los Angeles is one of the best cities in the world to eat in—but only if you know where to go. Summer brings out the worst of its food scene (overhyped openings, influencer mobs, patios with no shade and even less finesse), as well as the very best: smoky tacos on the Westside, rooftop bars with actual personality, and high-falutin' hotspots that are still worth the chase. So, after a few weeks spent scouring street food and fine-dining establishments alike, here's a tried-and-tested guide on where to actually eat well in LA this summer—no gimmicks, just the good Los Angeles KA'TEEN, Hollywood The vibe is lush, the plates are shareable, and the crowd is textbook Hollywood—half gorgeous people, half people with great taste trying to date gorgeous people. All of whom, undoubtedly, leave texting their friends about the best Mexican food they've had in ages. Chef Wes Avila (ex–Guerrilla Tacos) leans into Yucatán cooking at KA'TEEN, with standout wood-fired meats and a roasted bone marrow mole rojo I will defend with my life. Sunday brunch is an attraction in its own right: order the huevos rancheros, a roasted corn ash-rimmed mezcalita, get lost in the foliage and thank me 5 Spot, Los Angeles Desert 5 Spot, Hollywood Imagine Dolly Parton designed a rooftop bar. Now add mezcal. Just upstairs from KA'TEEN, Desert 5 Spot leans full-throttle into kitsch—non-stop country music, poolside cactus murals, and a regular lineup of two-step classes that somehow draw more locals than tourists. Come for line dancing on a Wednesday, stay for the prickly pear-infused Ring of FIrecocktail, and a healthy round of mixologist-fuelled singalongs. It's high-camp, high-altitude, and offers more than enough reasons to forget you're in Hollywood (though you can literally see the Hollywood sign from the bar).The Restaurant at Hotel Bel-Air, Los Angeles The Restaurant at Hotel Bel-Air, Bel-Air If you're skipping a suite but still want the experience, there is no better way to get a taste of Bel-Air's most iconic hotel than visiting its namesake restaurant. Perched beyond a swan‑filled lake and shaded by a canopy of impossibly bountiful florals, Chef Joe Garcia's Mediterranean‑Californian menu will quite simply give you too many options to choose from: handmade pea Agnolotti with sweet butter-poached lobster, the most indulgent Gulf prawn cocktail you'll ever lay tongue on, an impossibly decadent Old Hollywood onion dip topped with caviar, et al. All locally-sourced, all Isla Bonita, LA La Isla Bonita, Venice No summer food guide is complete without the truck that made LA seafood tacos a religion. La Isla Bonita parks up on Rose Ave (often at 4th & Rose), and has been a local institution since the 1980s. Get the ceviche tostada–a juicy mountain of fresh shrimp, octopus, avocado and tomato that barely holds together atop an impossibly light fried tortilla–or the carnitas and fish taco if you're feeling classic. Bring cash. Bring napkins. Bring Atwater Village Chef Morihiro Onodera's omakase-only restaurant shills sushi as slow art. He mills his own rice. He makes his own plates. He'll explain both to you, gently, as you eat in near silence with nine other diners. If that sounds like sweet relief, know it is—and that you need to book immediately. Expect seasonal nigiri, impossibly precise technique, and a sake list that rewards those who lean in with curiosity. It's not flashy, it's just immaculate.88 Club, Los Angeles 88 Club, Beverly Hills Led by chef Mei Lin (formerly of Top Chef fame and Nightshade), this sleek Chinese restaurant just landed in Beverly Hills—and it's already stealing reservations. Dinner feels like stepping into an underground glam‑noir film: dim wood panels, leather booths, vintage accent lighting—think golden‑era Hollywood meets Chinese speakeasy. The menu respects traditional flavors (sweet & sour squirrel fish, Nam Yu roasted chicken) while elevating them through precision and playful presentation. Perfect for a late‑night date or celebratory blow‑ Madre, West Hollywood It's plant-based, yes, but don't hold that against it. Gracias Madre's mega-vegan Mexican menu has long outlived the 'novelty' phase and settled into being reliably great—especially when paired with a mezcal margarita in its bougainvillea-covered courtyard. Try the sweet potato flautas and the mushroom barbacoa, and don't skimp on sides. It's popular with the wellness crowd, but more than delivers for the hungry foodie, Ki, Los Angeles Restaurant Ki, Downtown LA Chef Ki Kim's intimate 10‑seat tasting room just secured a Michelin star, and it's Korean cuisine unlike anything else in LA. Small plates kick off things off via premium palate-rousers (see; horse mackerel, aged kimchi, and perilla), before gliding into heavy luxury: dry-aged squab glazed in foie gras and maple; truffled, perilla‑seed pasta; final flourishes with Porcini, indigenous cacao, and tea leaf. Memorable, inventive, and fully deserving of its place on the list, this one's for the + Market Sahm, Venice Kris Yenbamroong's Venice outpost may be the chillest of his Thai-American empire, but don't let the laid-back vibe fool you—the food still slaps. It's funky, fiery, and served with a natural wine list that could convert a skeptic. The Larb Gai (sour-spicy chicken salad) is essential, the plentiful gin len (snacks)—particularly the crab wontones—will likely be the best you've found since that 2011 stint in Bangkok, and the vibe skews cool-local over tourist-core. Ideal for a group dinner that turns into a beachy crawl.
