There's a perpetual party going on in Rancho Cucamonga, centered around the Durango-inspired recipes of chef Alejandro “Alex” Carrasco, the Mo-Chica, Mozza, Red Medicine, and Joe’s veteran who nabbed a Michelin Bib Gourmand distinction in 2021 for his Bee Taqueria in West Adams.
We pulled up to the Sanctity Hotel around 4:20 on a Sunday afternoon and saw crowds all but bursting through the doors already, waiting for tables at Durango Cocina, the property’s ground-level restaurant where Carrasco oversees breakfast, lunch, and dinner.
Demand was equally urgent at Durango Rooftop, which opened atop the Sanctity about two weeks ago, marking the city’s first rooftop venue. Backed by open views of the San Gabriel foothills, tables of tight dresses, collared shirts, and foos alike partied over margarita “trees,” beef and chorizo skewers, and pounding beats. The demand never waned on either floor throughout the evening.
“Honestly, since day one, we've been blowing up, like, non-stop,” Carrasco tells L.A. TACO. “There's no table that is not busy. The community has accepted us very well.”
Carrasco was forced to close Bee Taquería, lauded for its taco omakase, last year after the landlord sold the land it was on. Fortunately, a lucky encounter in his past paved the way forward.
The Mexico City-raised chef and Cordon Bleu Paris graduate was at Burning Man a few years ago when he met a stranger who introduced him to Freddy Braidy, a Hollywood producer and the CEO behind Boulevard Hospitality Group (BHG), the force behind venues that include Yamashiro, the Chinese Theater, Rokusho, Udatsu Sushi, and Adults Only in Hollywood.
Initially, they conceived of opening a taquería together.
“But then Freddy was like, ‘Okay, forget about the taqueria. I just went to Durango and … I have this project,” Carrasco says. “And I'm like, ‘yeah, we should do it.’”
Durango Cantina opened on Melrose in 2023. Despite initial rave reviews for its boda-style lamb shanks, chipotle-glazed ribs, and vaquero vibes, their stretch of the street, notoriously light on nocturnal foot traffic, proved to be the wrong location for the concept. This is when Braidy suggested moving the ship, bedazzled cow skulls and all, to the Inland Empire.
Now called Durango Cocina, the restaurant resides at Sanctity Hotel, which falls under Hilton's Tapestry umbrella. It’s grown bigger and more spellbinding, from the black-and-sepia mural of a guitar player to a fountain at its core to a glassed-in wine display.
“What we're trying to do is create this day-by-day restaurant for the community,” Carrasco says, noting his emphasis on creating experiences for all levels of dining, from those looking for a casual lunch and dinner, a group celebration, or fine-dining, to the breezy, pumping rooftop, to a standout brunch for hotel guests, families, and couples. “So it will be a little bit of all the stuff. And in the future, we want to create tasting menus where we show ourselves.”
Recipes from the Mexican state of Durango, arguably underrepresented in Southern California, drive the menu, with “twists and turns” from Carrasco and the BHG team, both of whom share a penchant for Japanese cuisine, among others.
At Durango Cocina, a dish of yellowtail crudo is shaved to sashimi-size and paired with a sauce of poblano and yuzu kosho. A whole branzino is roasted with hoja santa, its abdomen arcing under a tangle of cooked broccolini, carrots, and cherry tomatoes in a ranchero salsa.
You can eat the whole delicately fried heads of the serrano salsa-marinated Mexican shrimp poking up like whack-A-Moles in his aguachile rojo, while cheese dumplings are stuffed with Mennonite cheese and albondigas abound, served in a traditional caldillo (stew) Duranguense made with seven chiles, with a grip of molletes on the side.
There’s a tomahawk with a chipotle demi-glace, too. But our favorite showstopper is a mammoth, chile morita-and-chipotle-glazed bone-in beef short rib topped with serrano salsa and a brat green cilantro-ajonjolí dressing.
“You find, you know, Oaxacan cuisine, Jalisco’s cooking, and mariscos and stuff like that,” Carrascos says of the concept. “But Durango, no one has really done it before. It has so much tradition and so much, you know, culture to offer to the public.”
“Durango is a state that is, like, desert,” he says. “At the same time, it's surrounded by Nayarit and Sinaloa. And so, they have seafood, which they absorb and they create their style, which is good.”
For the project, Carrasco has moved out to the neighborhood with his family, living within walking distance of the Sanctity Hotel. He’s not only happy to see the restaurant open with a bang, but he also appreciates having well-practiced partners, which frees him from some of the many stresses of being an owner, like those at Bee Taqueria.
“When you're an owner, you have to do every single thing, from accounting to, you know, cleaning,” he says. “Now we have the experience, expertise, and back-up of BHG. Then I can focus more on food and customers.”
Carrasco hopes it can be a model for future Durangos to come. He’s also in early talks with a couple of other prominent chefs about bringing an ambitious new taco concept to the IE in due time.
Durango Cocina’s immediate popularity in Rancho Cucamonga, as well as the prospect of having a solid stop for an impromptu party or great Durango-style dinner between L.A. and destinations like Las Vegas and Palm Springs, gives one the sense that Durango is better poised as a big fish in a smaller pond, compared to the saturated world of L.A. food that can force even distinct regional concepts to battle it out.
Carrasco isn’t tripping on such thoughts. He’s content where he’s at right now, working (really, really) hard at what he does, for a crowd that appreciates the cooking at the heart of Durango’s ceaseless celebration, furthering the rather singular concept he forged from a random meeting in the Black Rock Desert.
“We just come here with our own style, our own, you know, approach to the community,” he says. “We just respect everybody. We're just, like, always humble.”
Durango Cocina & Rooftop ~ 12255 Base Line Rd. Rancho Cucamonga, CA 91739
