Chaak

101 Best restaurants of Los Angeles

@latimes

"#64 At her sleek Old Town Tustin restaurant, chef Gabbi Patrick pays homage to her family’s Yucatecan heritage with time-intensive interpretations of the region’s revered dishes. Banana-leaf-wrapped cochinita pibil, smoked over red oak for 11 hours, is intensely succulent. Her pavo en recado negro — braised turkey rubbed in a blackened chile paste — celebrates the dish’s natural earthiness and pungency. A take on tamal colado, masa strained into a pudding-like cake, is dessert-like in its decadence. Smaller plates also shine. Corn empanadas are hot, crisp goblets of stretchy Oaxacan cheese; the traditional pumpkin seed dip called sikil p’ak is a delicate pastiche of fruity, earthy notes. Seekers of flavor at full throttle will want to sample the restaurant’s charred habanero salsa, a dense, ink-black, devastatingly spicy substance that may haunt your palate for days. You can recover at the bar, where mezcal cocktails and Mexican wines by the glass are the order of the day. Credit cards accepted. Full bar. Street parking."