WHEN I WAS rising up in Stockton, Calif., within the Nineteen Seventies and ’80s, there have been solely two special-occasion eating places acceptable to my household. They have been each on the south facet of the town, within the barrio. My Mexican-born abuelo favored Mi Ranchito, and for my dad it was Arroyo’s Cafe. Regardless of which one we went to, my order was all the time the identical: rib steak ranchero with rice, refried beans and leaves of undressed iceberg lettuce wilted by soupy salsa. I’d pinch torn items of machine-pressed flour tortillas across the slices of steak and blend in all the edges. It was a celebratory meal if there ever was one.
Immediately, Mexican eating places could also be ubiquitous in California however, in these days, even Chicano eating places, the place conventional recipes have been tailored for American substances and palates, have been not often discovered exterior of Latino enclaves.
One notable exception is Casa Vega, which opened in 1956 in Sherman Oaks, Los Angeles, an upscale, predominantly white neighborhood within the San Fernando Valley. The founder, Rafael “Ray” Vega was born in Nationwide Metropolis, Calif., and raised in Tijuana and Burbank, drew from his mom’s recipes, serving, amongst different home-style Mexican American dishes, plates of chile colorado, a savory beef stew, and mole rojo, roast hen in mole with its mix of dried chiles, peanut butter, plantains, raisins and different substances, viscous from floor tortilla chips. For a lot of within the neighborhood, Casa Vega was their gateway to Mexican flavors.
By 1958, the restaurant wanted a bigger house and moved into its present location, a squat white constructing with a purple tile roof two blocks away, on the nook of Ventura Boulevard and Fulton Avenue. On the time, Sherman Oaks, a brief drive from film and tv studios, was dwelling to a rising variety of leisure business executives and actors. From early on, Casa Vega drew a star crowd. Marlon Brando, amongst many others, was a daily. “My dad went a minimum of as soon as every week or we’d choose up meals to go, from earlier than the ’60s to when he died in 2004,” says Miko Castaneda Brando, 63, one of many actor’s sons. Brando’s favourite order: a Carta Blanca beer, corn-tortilla quesadilla and steak picado (a beef-and-vegetable stew).
In Quentin Tarantino’s 2019 film, “As soon as Upon a Time … in Hollywood,” which is ready in 1969 and options iconic Hollywood haunts, a couple of scenes happen in Casa Vega’s brick-walled eating room, with Brad Pitt’s and Leonardo DiCaprio’s characters ensconced in a leather-based sales space. Through the filming, Christy Vega, 46, Ray Vega’s daughter, says Tarantino bought behind the bar to make margaritas “his method,” with Casamigos Añejo tequila, a mix of citrus juices and Stevia as a sweetener. “It’s now on the menu because the Tarantino,” she provides.
Christy’s grandparents Rafael Sr. and Maria “Mary” Vega moved to Los Angeles from Tijuana, Mexico, in 1930 after leaving their jobs at Agua Caliente On line casino, a Prohibition-era sizzling spot, to determine their very own restaurant on the newly revitalized Olvera Avenue, reborn that very same yr as a Mexican-themed vacationer attraction. After 20 years of working Café Caliente, Rafael Sr. and Maria opened one other Mexican restaurant, in Hollywood, however the reception was cool and it closed after 4 years.
“My dad opened Casa Vega so my grandparents may have one thing to do,” says Christy. Her grandparents would prep the restaurant for dinner service whereas Ray bought life insurance coverage through the day, then labored night shifts on the restaurant. After a couple of years, Ray shifted his consideration full time to Casa Vega, turning it into one of many metropolis’s hottest Mexican cantinas. Christy took over working the restaurant in 2010 after Ray retired and ultimately assumed possession. Ray died in 2021 at age 86.
THE DÉCOR OF Casa Vega hasn’t modified a lot in a long time. It’s a romantic throwback, impressed by these early days at Agua Caliente On line casino, says Christy. The warmly lit eating room consists principally of purple leather-based cubicles and tables for 2, all set with burgundy tablecloths. Work by the Western artist Lester Burton Hawks depict Mexican life and bullfighting tradition. The carpet, additionally deep purple, is from an overrun of rolls that Christy purchased from a restaurant inside Caesar’s Palace in Las Vegas. “Every year we rip it up and paint the entire place,” she says. The adjoining barroom is lined with high-backed stools upholstered in the identical tufted leather-based because the cubicles. Above the bar hangs an ample provide of wide-rimmed margarita glasses. “We’re a Chicano restaurant, proudly,” says Christy.
Different touches, together with the newer Spanish Colonial-style wood door on the entrance, wrought-iron chandeliers and ceramic urns, have been handpicked by Vega members of the family and slowly added over time. In 2022, a 100-seat outside patio opened within the previous car parking zone. Over the previous few years, Christy and the top chef, Braulio Arellano, who began at Casa Vega within the Nineteen Nineties, have been step by step updating the menu, too. The kitchen now seems shrimp ceviche, lobster enchiladas and a molcajete, a combined grill served in a volcanic-stone mortar. Bartenders rely extra on contemporary substances for his or her concoctions, moderately than outdated mixes, and supply craft mezcal, in addition to wine from Mexico’s Valle de Guadalupe. However regardless of the few concessions to culinary traits, Casa Vega retains the identical clubby, convivial spirit that Ray cultivated all these years in the past.
Final month, on a late Friday afternoon, I stationed myself on the bar and watched Antonio Navarro, who has been shaking home margaritas at Casa Vega for the final 20 years and speaks mellifluous Spanglish, dote on a couple of locals. One girl ordered her standard: a frozen mango margarita and steak quesadilla. Don Armado, a long-retired server who had labored at Casa Vega for over 30 years, drank Coca-Cola on the rocks whereas Navarro gently cajoled him into accepting a refill of heat tortilla chips and salsa.
By 5 p.m., the sound of whirring blenders and hovering mariachi trumpets on the playlist had crescendoed together with the chatter of the rising crowd. As I spooned up my oven-style chile verde burrito, I felt immediately nostalgic for these long-gone Sunday lunches with my grandparents. America has all the time beloved our meals, however not all the time our individuals, an irony that may be misplaced on a few of the glamorous clients which have walked via the hacienda-style doorways of Casa Vega. I considered how Ray Vega lured the Hollywood elite to his Chicano restaurant, incomes their loyalty with tequila pictures and combo plates of tacos, tamales and enchiladas, slyly paving the way in which for numerous different Mexican American restaurateurs to plant their very own flag effectively past Olvera Avenue.