“Fusion” is an expansive and ever-fresh culinary genre that too many critics are quick to discredit, forgetting that Tex-Mex chains and the 1980’s indulgences of celebrity chefs only make up one end of the spectrum.
Los Angeles, a town founded by Mexicans and open to all, with deep roots of multiculturalism running through its veins, remains fusion cooking's spiritual capital.
L.A.’s current fusion phenomenons come from chefs who grew up amid families and neighborhoods where firm cultural lines tend to disintegrate. From chefs who were raised between two or more different backgrounds or through eclectic L.A. upbringings, where it's normal to obsessively fill one's gullet with foods from other cultures, and today, have turned to fusing those flavors into their own cooking.
Chefs with enough talent to curate veritable microcosms of the dovetailing communities around them on every plate.
There aren’t any gimmicky fusion spots on this guide–only organic concepts from chefs sworn to honoring their backgrounds and edible fixations, and executing them as if they were always meant to be.
These are L.A.’s seven best tacos sprung from a fusion of Middle Eastern-and-Mexican ingredients.