Chef Carlos Jaquez redefines East L.A. Chicano Mexican food through his sustainable pop-up

Nestled on the corner of Sunset Boulevard and Parkman Avenue, Café Tropical is calmly busy as Angelenos enjoy the vibrant cuisine of Teotl, a farmers market-sourced and Mexican-influenced pop-up, that inhabits the beloved café every Monday. 

With a 12-item menu that changes depending on the season, Teotl, which launched on June 3 from the mind of Chef Carlos Jaquez, alongside business partners Arda Jooharian and Andrew Pettingell, intertwines a harmonious blend of flavors that narrates a tale of tradition, innovation and the dynamic spirit of Los Angeles at Café Tropical every Monday and Square One Dining Wednesday through Friday. 

“I'm just taking the dishes that I grew up with and putting some respect on its name,” Jaquez said. “I want my community to come to this pop-up and I want the flavors to be similar, but I want them to experience organic food and the beauty that comes with that.”

Jaquez, the culinary visionary behind Teotl and a private chef the rest of the time, grew up in El Sereno surrounded by a huge family and an abundance of food, such as his grandmother’s fresh flour tortillas and carnitas they would eat from Christmas into New Years or his mother’s savory bread pudding. As a passionate chef who has received recognition from outlets such as The New York Times, Star Chefs Magazine, Thrillist and accolades from the Mexican Consulate of Los Angeles, he fondly remembers his first cooking experience at 15. 

“I liked a girl at the time and her family needed somebody to help cook,” Jaquez said. “I spent the summer watching many barbecue shows and got really into it. I catered for 50 people and made ribs and brisket. An older man said, ‘Whoever made this must have been working on this for so long to develop this recipe,’ but I was just having fun and taking a go at it.” 

Around the same time, Jaquez began turning his culinary passion into a career. He worked at a few restaurants, such as the Library Bar in Downtown LA, while catering with a friend before attending Le Cordon Bleu. After culinary school, the chef worked at Little Beast in Eagle Rock, where he began as a pastry chef and left as a sous chef after three years. 

It was when Jaquez worked as a line cook, grill cook and butcher at Otium, where he met Jooharian and Pettingell, alongside acclaimed chef Tim Hollingsworth, that he introduced his pop-up concept, Birria pa la Cruda, which came to fruition in 2019 when his passion project began serving L.A.-style birria tacos on Sundays to his community in El Sereno. After three years at Otium, Jaquez began working alongside Ori Menasche at Bestia as a morning prep cook until the COVID-19 pandemic forced the restaurant to close. But this didn’t stop Birria pa la Cruda’s momentum. Despite a brief pause, the pop-up continued for the majority of the pandemic. 

“It impacted people’s lives in a positive way when we were doing it during the pandemic because it gave them a sense of normalcy,” Jaquez said.

Seeing how COVID was affecting the health of those around him, Jaquez felt compelled to introduce a more balanced diet to his community, with a focus on vegetables. Though this idea was the catalyst of Teotl, it was originally called Ome, the first syllable of the word Ometeotl, which means two, or dual, gods or energies in the Nahuatl language, also known as Aztec or Mexica. Having attended Anawakalmekak, one of the first indigenous schools in LA, the name of Jaquez’s brick-and-mortar project is a reflection of his spirituality and knowledge of Native American and Mexican culture. 

In unison with Birria pa la Cruda, Ome took inspiration from the in-season farmers' market vegetables and served meat and vegetable tacos at Holy Grounds Cafe in LA. 

“[Ome] was meant to be a balance to the meat-heavy diet and, now, Teotl is about bringing together the last five years of vegetable dishes that have been developing onto one menu,” Jaquez said. “It's a vegetable-rich menu that's meant to focus on the vegetables as the main but not exclude the meats. A lot of traditional dining that I've worked in always has meat as the main with sides of vegetables. This is supposed to be mainly vegetables with smaller sides of meat. I think that's more sustainable.”

With dishes such as papas machas, escabeche, Valdivia Farms heirloom tomato salad, Autonomy Farms grilled bavette steak and raspado de frutas on the menu, Teotl ties in the dynamic flavors of L.A. and the dishes Jaquez grew up loving along with the innovative techniques he learned while working for high-end restaurants. 

“I wanted to do something that was like my East L.A., Chicano Mexican upbringing of food that I remember, but a little more refined and given the same honor and put in the same spotlight like these prestigious restaurants,” Jaquez said. “I wanted to make sure that we had the same flavors I grew up with. There's a steak on the menu, and, to me, the steak is like that Sunday carne asada that you go to with your family. There's steak from the grill, a big bowl of guacamole and some flour tortillas that I make.” 

With an abundance of fresh and colorful produce, Jaquez likens L.A.’s farmer’s markets to creating your palette at a paint store. “Eating different colors is healthy for you,” Jaquez said. “There are different vitamins and minerals that produce these colors in vegetables. I need to utilize those ingredients to bring those nutrients to the community.” 

The chef continued, “It's reconnecting people to their food. I don't think the world will ever undo that style of farming where we just have everything available at all times, but it's important to remind people that certain things are better at a certain time because that's when they're supposed to be grown. We're humans. We're simple and I think there's a natural way of doing things that we're disconnected from. Utilizing the farmers market to dictate what we should be eating at what times is important.”

As a pillar of Teotl’s sustainability, the pop-up is practicing organic composting and plans to become more eco-friendly through recycled to-go packaging, minimizing single-use plastics and using produce to span across multiple dishes. 

Sustainability goes hand-in-hand with community engagement, according to Jaquez. “I know there's nothing I can do individually, but if people are more conscious about sourcing things locally, then we're not contributing as much to things that are shipped globally,” said the chef. “There’s food growing in our backyard. There are farmer’s markets all over the city that are local and aren't traveling around the world to get to your table. It's important to eat like that because it builds community.” 

As Teotl continues to grow, becoming more involved in the L.A. community through cultural workshops, community gardens, local food drives, storytelling dinners and partnerships with local environmental organizations and schools is high on the list of priorities, according to Jooharian, one of Jaquez’s business partners. Making the pop-up as inclusive and affordable as possible is also critical for Jaquez. 

“I want people to not be intimidated to come in and try one thing or come in and order a taco,” Jaquez said. “We can also just serve tacos to people, which is cool. The community is what made me. I'm a product of my community, so being able to provide something that my community can also enjoy is very important.” 

Reflecting the 4.8 million Latinos who make up the beloved city, L.A. is home to numerous food spots, 30% of them being Mexican restaurants, according to a recent Pew Research Center report. With a vast amount of competitors, it can be difficult to stand out, especially as a small pop-up, but Teotl stands out without even trying. Though it is Mexican-influenced with flavors that create bursts of color when you close your eyes to savor each bite, it is adamantly a pop-up focused on showcasing the heart of L.A. Their elaborate menu that expands further than fellow pop-ups, which usually serve a few entrees and a dessert, opens them up to a broader audience with vegan and gluten-free options on a majority of dishes. 

“It’s so natural for [Jaquez]. He's not an extrovert that's going to go and chat everybody up,” Pettingell told CALÓ News. “He's just genuinely excited that you're eating his food and he's excited for the food that he made for you. It’s infectious and you can feel that energy. That's something you can't teach. It's in him and it's beautiful. And that is the heart of what Teotl is, that energy. It’s this amazing energy that surrounds his cooking and that can't be explained. He has something different and unique and that’s what we're presenting.” 

Pettingell continued, “[Teotl] is Mexican influenced in the sense that [Jaquez] draws upon a lot of those influences, but it's truly a Los Angeles restaurant because we're drawing upon what we have here locally and caring about what we’re putting on the plate. That’s very important to Carlos. What goes on the plate has to be important and have meaning and value to be presented.” 

Jaquez’s belief in the sacred connection between people and their food is exactly why he aims to rekindle that relationship by reintroducing the joy of consuming fresh, minimally processed ingredients into the lives of his fellow Angelenos. Along with the knowledge of where the food they are eating is coming from, the Teotl team hopes customers leave feeling inspired to try farmer’s markets themselves or simply curious to ask more questions. 

“We want people to leave happy, but outside of that, we're hoping that people ask some of the questions we ask, like, ‘Why don't we eat more like this? Why haven't I had food like this before? Where can I find more food like this?’ and start to search for those places,” Pettingell said. “The more people who can go to places like [Teotl] will sustain those businesses, and then we'll see more restaurants and pop-ups like what Carlos is doing, which would benefit our community as a whole.”

Through the growth of Teotl, Jaquez has not only realized that he would have loved a pop-up like this when he was young, but he is also making this possible for the following generations. By teaching this current generation how to eat more sustainably and thoughtfully, the chef hopes to impact Mexican cuisine in a way that doesn’t change or alter it but reflects his modern perspective that urges to create a new but also uphold tradition. 

The pride Jaquez has in his Mexican culture is palpable through Teotl, with his main goal to give back to the community that made him the chef and human he is today. 

“It’s an honor to be able to serve food that was inspired by my family and community, I want to do right by them,” he said. “I want to make food that people are proud of eating, that reminds them of something that they had growing up but is well-executed using amazing ingredients. I want to make my people proud.” 

Although Teotl is temporarily closed for the rest of July, it will be opening again in August at locations that will be announced. Check out Teotl on their Instagram.