ABOUT

In our family, María is the proper first name of every mother, daughter, tía, and abuelita going back generations. Ours are the flavors of their kitchens: traditions transplanted into Southern California's multicultural soils.

We call it Alta California cuisine, a mezcla of Mexican and American cultures, a conversation between our generation and the generations of cooks and farmers who nurtured the traditions of our home table.

When Chef Carlos Salgado opened Taco María in 2013, he made a decision to honor his family’s culture and their hard work by making Mexican-inspired food with a reverence for its provenance. Using the best ingredients available and using the techniques and values he learned in Michelin-starred restaurants, Salgado worked to create a syncretic Alta California cuisine.

At the time, more than a decade ago, it was nearly impossible to find a Mexican restaurant in the United States, even in Southern California, where diners revered the complexities of the cuisine the way they might in a Eurocentric restaurant. Taco María opened to a lot of questions, most often about why a taco should cost more than a dollar, or what place a prix fixe menu had in a Mexican restaurant. But a couple months into that first year, it became clear that Taco María was at the forefront of a larger movement–happening across the US and in Mexico–of young Mexican chefs shining a light on the foods of their families and ancestors, applying the same veneration they were taught, throughout their training, to give other cuisines. 

Early on, recognizing the importance of corn to reinterpreting or evoking Mexican cuisine, Salgado knew he would need to make tortillas the way his parents and grandparents had in Mexico. He began sourcing corn from small family farms in Mexico, becoming one of the first chefs to partner with Masienda. Taco María’s masa, nixtamalized and processed in house every day, and the tortillas, tamales, sopes, and memelas made from it, became the heart of the restaurant. Now, in-house masa programs are more and more common at independent restaurants, a source of great pride for Salgado and his team, who trained many others in how to return to this ancient tradition.

In its first decade, Taco María received a Michelin star four times and was consistently in the top five restaurants on the Los Angeles Times 101 Best Restaurants list. The late Jonathan Gold, LA Times restaurant critic and early champion of Salgado’s work, named Taco María Los Angeles Times Restaurant of the Year in 2018, and Esquire called Taco María one of the ten most important restaurants of the decade. 

Salgado was a Food & Wine Best New Chef in 2015, as well as Chef of the Year in the Orange County Register. In 2023, he was a James Beard Finalist for Best Chef: California, and Star Chefs has honored Salgado and Taco María with their Rising Star Community Chef award for the restaurant’s commitment to the values and practices that make Taco María a responsible social institution.

Taco María is a family project, run by Salgado and his wife Emilie Coulson Salgado, and started with the help of his sister and parents. Alumni of the restaurant have gone on to head their own kitchens, restaurants, and wine programs, continuing an exciting evolution of hospitality in Orange County and beyond. 

At the ten-year mark, in July 2023, Taco María closed its location in Costa Mesa, California, having outgrown the original space. Please stay in touch to learn what’s coming next. This is just the beginning.

For more about Taco María’s first ten years, we recommend this tribute by Gustavo Arellano in the Los Angeles Times, and the Emmy award-winning “Alta California” episode of KCET's television program The Migrant Kitchen.