Guerrilla Tacos: a culinary coup
Wes Avila went from fine-dining kitchens to his own truck that serves a Times ‘best dish of 2013.’
When Wes Avila was interviewing for a job at Le Comptoir, Gary Menes’ temple of vegetable cookery, Menes asked him what his ultimate career goal was.
“To be the best taquero in Los Angeles,” Avila replied.
And though it’s impossible to say who is the best taco cook in this city of splendid taco cooks, only a few years after working for Menes, the 35-year-old Pico Rivera native is just about guaranteed to be on any knowledgeable shortlist.
His Guerrilla Tacos truck, now 3 years old, serves compelling dishes that are equal in complexity to those at many fine-dining restaurants, even though they’re served on warm tortillas and eaten standing up.
In Guerrilla’s first year, Avila’s taco made with roasted squash, Oaxacan cheese, a hint of chile and smoky charred tomato made Times restaurant critic Jonathan Gold’s list of best dishes of 2013.
Cooking with Avila at the Glendale condo he shares with wife, Tanya Mueller, a professor at East Los Angeles College, and their French bulldog mix, Pono Dog, that blend of French technique and Eastside soul is obvious.
To make the leek garnish for his sweet potato tacos, he first sears the leeks in butter, then poaches them until tender in a broth made with browned carrots and whole garlic cloves, fresh thyme and parsley and a bottle of wine. Then he pats them dry and sears them in butter again. And that’s just one element of the dish.
A few ribbons of those leeks go on a corn tortilla (he swears by La Princesita brand), with browned slices of creamy Oaxacan or panela cheese, a slice of roasted Japanese sweet potato that’s been fried in butter, a salsa made with almonds, pine nuts, chiles de árbol and tomatillos (the small ones, called milpero, have the best flavor, he says), crumbled feta and green onions.
The result is rich, mouth-filling flavor, at once creamy, salty, sweet and spicy, with an equally wide range of textures. It’s stupendous. And once the various elements have been prepped, all it takes is a couple of minutes and a griddle to finish. You could serve it as a taco, but it’s pretty enough to make a plated appetizer.
That’s the kind of attention to detail he learned working under chefs such as Menes and Republique’s Walter Manzke (then at Auberge Carmel).
A 2005 graduate of Le Cordon Bleu cooking school in Pasadena, Avila started out on the typical bigdeal restaurant track, including staging in France with Alain Ducasse. But he didn’t find it satisfying.
“I found myself getting drawn deeper and deeper into fine dining,” he says. “You know how intense that is: It’s like working at a temple. I was counting the number of peanuts that went onto a dish.
“It was a really good learning experience, but that wasn’t the direction I wanted to go with my cooking.”
So Avila started Guerrilla Tacos on a card table set up outside Handsome Roasters in downtown L.A. When that got shut down (he had no permits), he jumped on the first taco truck he could find.
A brick-and-mortar restaurant is still his dream, he says.
“I’ve always got people talking to me. They’ll say, ‘Hey, I’ve got a really good spot you have to go into.’ And then they ask if I have $200,000 to move in. No, but thank you for asking.”
Until then, Avila says, he’ll stick with selling tacos out of his truck.
“First, it’s my favorite food to eat. Plus, I love to interact with people, get face-to-face with my customers. I get to see what they like and what they don’t like. And believe me, they’ll tell you, whichever way.”