Five years ago, husband-and-wife Carmen and Omar Zavala (she originally from Sylmar, he from Lima, Peru) took a chance and bought a restaurant, which had been owned by Carmen’s aunt for much of its existence. They moved down to L.A. from the Bay Area with their two kids and became taqueros.
Taquería Juanito’s has ruled its corner of a strip mall at Victory and Balboa Boulevards for the last 30 years. A snug L-shaped diner, its windows are hung with flags; trippy, taco-themed simulacrums of black light posters by the artist Amos Basilo, recalling the days when half of the Valley was head shops. Here a sombrero-ed dinosaur clutching a fat taco on a Mesozoic mesa; there a forest fairy hovering over a fat burrito between purple, spotted ‘shrooms.
Without changing the signature recipes too much, they focused on improving them, making everything from scratch and dedicating themselves to only buying fresh organic tomatillos, garlic, and the other ingredients that go into their salsas and food.
But it wouldn’t be too long before the plancha, sizzling with the asada fries and quesabirrias beloved by lunch-breaking locals and after-school kids, was making room for lomo saltado and bistec a lo pobre, and the fridge case was stocked with as nearly as many cans of Inca Kola as there were cans of Coke.
You’ll find these items, and many more staples of Peruvian cuisine, on the menu dubbed Carmelitas Peruvian, which is served inside Juanito’s at all times, after launching in mid-January of this year.