Pupusas are the first thing to come to mind for most folks when talking about El Salvador. As the iconic culture bearer of Central America's smallest country, this dish has become synonymous with L.A. Salvi gastronomy. I’m going to skip the part where I describe what a pupusa is because this article is for the already initiated. Nearly half a million Salvadorans reside within L.A. County. This article is for the diaspora by the diaspora.
This allows for sensitivity and insight, unlike when the L.A. Times had a non-Salvadoran write a “Where to Get Pupusas” article in 2015 that thanked the Civil War for pupuserías in Los Angeles. Thanks to Salvi journalist Daniel Alvarenga for catching that before they went back and edited that line out. This is also not meant to be an all-encompassing best of the list, but rather a current snapshot of some notable places across the ever-changing food landscape here in L.A. as of 2023. This is a list curated with a lot of intention and thoughtfulness, without much further ado.