Dine Latino Restaurant Week kicks off today with more than 200 local restaurants representing the culinary traditions of 20 Latin American countries, with prix-fixe menus and special dishes through Sunday, May 24.
The Latino Restaurant Assn., which hosts the dining event, aims to celebrate and provide essential support to participating Latino restaurants across L.A. County, which have faced mounting challenges since ICE raids began last year.
When last summer’s raids resulted in an evening curfew in downtown L.A., with many businesses forced to shut down or close early, Latino-owned restaurants were hit the hardest.
Many employees didn’t feel safe coming into work, leading to staff shortages, and some of the restaurants’ usual clientele stopped coming in for fear of being targeted by agents.
“I feel like [Latino restaurants] are kind of being a little bit attacked or suffering because of matters outside of their day-to-day operations,” said chef Agustin Romo, owner of Peruvian restaurant Casa Chaskis. “We’re struggling. Everything from food [and] produce to rent.”
In Long Beach, Casa Chaskis will serve a prix-fixe menu with beef empanadas (or a vegan alternative), chaufa with pollo or tofu and passion fruit juice for $22. Lugya’h, a popular stall for Oaxacan cuisine in West Adams’ Maydan Market, will offer mini tlayudas with a choice of protein (chorizo, tasajo, morcillla or veggies), an appetizer dip (mole, guacamole or a surprise salsa), an agua fresca (hibiscus or horchata) and hibiscus jelly for $35.
“We share what we’re capable of doing,” said Lugya’h chef-owner Alfonso “Poncho” Martinez, who offers dishes that trace roots to Oaxaca’s Sierra Norte region. “We let the world know that as Oaxaqueños, as Latinos, we have much to offer.”
Nearly 50% of L.A.’s population is Latino, according to the latest U.S. census. Additionally, Latinos make up 63% of food and restaurant workers, according to the Los Angeles Almanac. L.A. County is also home to the most Mexican restaurants in the country, according to a 2024 Pew Research Center study.
Now in its fifth year, Dine Latino has grown significantly from just 60 restaurants participating in the first year to 200 for this year’s event. What began as a six-day event in 2021, Dine Latino Restaurant Week has since extended to 12 days. At least half of the restaurants are participating for the first time this year, said Lilly Rocha, founder of Dine Latino Restaurant Week and executive director of the Latino Restaurant Assn.
“This is a great opportunity to really get to know the different types of Latino cuisine that exist in this amazing city,” Rocha said. “I’m Colombian, and I had no idea there were so many Colombian restaurants.”
Rocha launched Dine Latino in 2021, inspired by Latino Restaurant Assn. members in Philadelphia who hosted a Latino restaurant week.
“They gave us all of the information … they said ‘take it to L.A. Make it bigger,’” Rocha said.
The restaurant association has around 1,400 members nationwide, with about 1,000 based in California, Rocha said. Their goal was to support these restaurant owners and to “show up for kitchens that always show up for us.”
For many Latino restaurant owners, Dine Latino is an opportunity to showcase their regional or national cuisines.
“People think of Latino food and they think [of] just a couple of items, but no, the fare is just wide and crazy,” said Amara Barroeta, owner of Amara Cafe, a Venezuelan restaurant in Pasadena.
Maléna, an Afro-Mexican stand in Maydan Market specializing in coastal cuisine from Guerrero’s Costa Chica region, is participating in Dine Latino for the first time. Owner Heidie Irra runs the restaurant with her four sisters.
“Every state in Mexico … every town, has different ways of cooking. I want people to know that there’s varieties of different types of foods within one state,” Irra said.
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