La Diosa De Los Moles

101 Best restaurants of Los Angeles

@latimes

"#56 Rocío Camacho is the undisputed mole whisperer of Los Angeles, a chef who has left her mark on many of Los Angeles’ most inventive Mexican kitchens. She is an alumna of La Casita Mexicana, cooked at Moles la Tia in East L.A. for a spell, and suffered every restaurateur’s worst nightmare a few years ago when her Sun Valley restaurant, Rocío’s Mole de los Dioses, was shuttered due to arson damage. In late 2017, the Oaxacan native, who self-assuredly branded her restaurant with a translation of her nickname “the Mole Goddess,” opened a new mole-centric restaurant in Paramount. You can sometimes catch glimpses of her — a blur in her chef’s whites — through the partially open kitchen, pounding spices, pulverizing nuts, blending dried chiles. She cooks all the dense, complex mother sauces you would expect from a top Mexican kitchen: a complicated, ink-black mole oaxaqueño; a sweet, viscous mole poblano; and a mild and nutty mole verde. Camacho’s signature dish is la cuchara, wild salmon bathed in a manchamanteles (“tablecloth stainer”) mole. Suffused with chiles and fruits, her manchamanteles is delicately fruity and sweet, and very spicy. The mole fiesta plate showcases many of Camacho’s most distinct moles. On the weekends the restaurant hosts a Mexican brunch to end all Mexican brunches. Credit cards accepted. Full bar. Lot parking. Dining room and restroom are wheelchair accessible."