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Meet L.A.’s Alta California-Inspired Taquero Making Incredible Oyster Tacos and More At Our Live Event This Saturday

Oyster tacos with a yuzu aguachile slaw, a fried chicken taco with guajillo ranch, and a beef cheek taco with bone marrow salsa. Macheen will be bringing it this Saturday.

TACO MADNESS, Presented by Bud Light, is L.A.'s first and biggest taco festival. All of L.A.'s heaviest hitting taquerías will be in one place for one day only! The 21 + event is happening from 6 to 1:59 PM on Saturday, May 6, at LA Plaza de Cultura y Artes in downtown Los Angeles. Ticket sales proceeds will support L.A. TACO's award-winning street-level journalism.

Get your ticket here


The year was 2020. All of us were masking up. Getting vaccinated. Quarantining at home. Freaking out about things. But if you were Jonathan Perez, the taquero founder of MACHEEN, you were busy winning the special quarantine edition of our online taco tournament. The taquero never got his roses or celebration like past or present TACO MADNESS champions, but he's up there with the proud few taqueros who have weathered through the campaigning for votes to win it all.

Last year, he also won Best in Show at our live TACO MADNESS event.

Macheen's Oyster Taco. Photo via Macheen.

This year, Perez will only offer three refined tacos at our annual taco festival.

Oyster taco
Miso bacon beurre blanc | yuzu aguachile slaw | Wagyu tallow flour tortilla

Fried chicken taco
Guajillo ranch | hibiscus slaw

Blue corn tortilla

Beef cheek taco
Avocado mousse | Bone marrow Salsa | 8 hours braise beef cheek salsa negra

To think that Perez got his first break in the cooking game at a Yoshinoya! Cooking was not always in the game plan for Macheen, who was on his way to becoming a professional skater before an injury forced him to change careers. He is one of the hardest-working taqueros in L.A.'s TACO LIFE and the city is lucky to have him.

Catch his classically trained street-level tacos this Saturday night.

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