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3014 W Olympic Blvd., Los Angeles, CA 90006. Phone: 213.427.0608

Worth visiting in a 1 mile radius.

Guelaguetza has garnered quite a reputation since it opened in 1994. The popular Oaxacan restaurant in Koreatown, L.A. has appeared on LA Times food critic Jonathan Gold’s annual Best 101 Restaurants list, has won a James Beard Foundation Award for American Classics, and has earned positive reviews from many different food critics. With a resumé this impressive, I had to give Guelaguetza a try.

One thing everyone who considers going to Guelaguetza should know is that the restaurant is quite loud. The combination of overwhelming live (not that great) music, dozens of diners chattering, and the open kitchen creates an atmosphere so noisy that you have to shout to talk to the person sitting next to you. The patronage is mostly big parties of Mexican families with some foodies mixed in.

Guelaguetza is known for its mole sauce and micheladas, which are a type of drink made from beer, lime juice, and chili peppers. The menu at Guelaguetza is not your typical Mexican fare. As I scanned the menu searching for the usual tacos, burritos, and enchiladas, I passed over many items I’d never heard of before. Tasajo? Nopales Asados? Campechana? This was going to be my one opportunity to eat Mexican food in Los Angeles before going back to New England with its, shall I say, limited options of Mexican food, so I took the opportunity and ordered all out.

Our meal started with a lagniappe of tortilla chips and mole sauce with cheese sprinkled on top. Chips are usually a good indicator of the quality of a Mexican restaurant and I was very impressed. They were piping hot and fresh, and the mole sauce, though spicy, still retained the rich chocolaty flavor. I liked it better than the usual salsa that comes with chips at most Mexican restaurants.

There’s a corner of the large dining room at Guelaguetza where you can see the cooks grilling the meat. Our alambres entreé was fresh off the grill, a mixture of grilled beef, bell peppers, onions, cheese, salsa, and guacamole in between corn tortillas. This dish tasted good, and the accompanying tortillas were soft and full of buttery flavor, but it was not very interesting. In fact, it tasted rather like a beef taco in a different form.

The tlayuda is a sort of Oaxacan pizza covered in pork fat and beans, topped with lettuce, chorizo, and Oaxaca cheese. While alambres seemed a little too ordinary to me, the tlayuda was very unusual. I can’t say I liked it, though it was an interesting dish to try. The chorizo topping was odd because it tasted more like a spicy ground meatball than the sausage links that chorizo usually are. The spread on the tortilla crust was fatty and starchy and tasted like burnt lard. The tortilla was very thin and baked to a crisp so it tasted more like a water cracker, while the mixture of lettuce and cheese sprinkled on was bland and did nothing to help the dish. This dish was a major disappointment.

The seafood cocktail was good but not great. I liked the tomatoes, shrimp, octopus, and avocadoes on top of the complimentary saltines, but the seafood wasn’t very fresh. The signature dish, chicken with mole negro, was clearly authentic, as it included the wing of the chicken rather than just the breast. This is something you can’t find in most Mexican restaurants in America. I thought the chicken was cooked just right and the mole sauce added the same great spicy-chocolaty flavor that worked well with the chips. Carnitas did not come in taco form as I expected, but were served with a side of guacamole and a small salad. Although simple, this entree was one of the best, because pork and guacamole are a combination for the ages, especially when the pork is juicy and tender like it was here.

I would recommend Guelaguetza to try once, especially if you’re not very familiar with Mexican food because of the interesting array of dishes on the menu. However, I wouldn’t come back. Although most dishes were fine and service was cheerful, some dishes missed the mark, and the noisy atmosphere put a damper on my meal. Keep in mind that L.A.’s Koreatown has the highest concentration of restaurants in the country, so there are many other restaurant options in this diverse neighborhood.