[dropcap size=big]T[/dropcap]here remain few ingredients Los Angeles is yet to see folded inside a tortilla and christened a taco.
L.A.'s pupusa scene generally hesitates to buck tradition, however, sticking to the holy trinity of cheese, beans, and chicharrónes you’ll find from the streetside griddles dotting Vermont Avenue and Winnetka Boulevard to familiar restaurant names like Jaragua and Las Cazuelas.
René Alesandro Coreas, the owner of Walking Spanish, may be the chef to turn these conservative tendencies around in Salvadoran food, shining a wider light on the cuisine of Central America in the process.
The 27-year-old’s pupusas include fillings such as birria de chivo—with cilantro replacing loroco—rajas con queso, carne asada, Korean short rib based on a favorite kalbi dish at Koreatown’s Sun Nong Dan, and chicharrón braised in salsa verde. He even makes a pupusa with fried ham and mornay sauce riffing on croque monsieur.
Raised in Cudahy, Coreas leaped into the cooking game as a 19-year-old while helping his Mexican stepfather’s catering and barbecue businesses, an apprenticeship that pushed him into the professional restaurant world at 23.