Sinister masterminds are known for concocting strange creations in their secret hideouts, but in the lair of Alex and Elvia Garcia, who are better known as Evil Cooks, they’re whipping up Mexican food with a dark, heavy metal twist.
The Mexican food eatery, housed at Smorgasburg in Los Angeles, easily stands out from the bright neighboring vendors. It’s decorated with black tarps, skulls and a robed figure carrying a sword with what looks like intestines or tentacles hanging over its hands.
Alex and Elvia eat, sleep, and breathe goth, metal, punk, and a mix of other music genres, and they want their patrons to eat punk too. Their stand features buttons that spoof iconic band logos such as The Exploited and AC/DC, offering fans of Mexican food and music’s most wicked genres a chance to break bread together.
The pop-up serves diabolical dishes, such as the two-pound Megadeth Torta, made with a fried egg, tomatoes, guacamole, cilantro, red salsa, bacon, caramelized onions, hot dogs, black al pastor, mozzarella cheese, and green chorizo served between two bolillo slices with more melted cheese.
Their most notorious item, not always available because of the prep required, is The Poseidon, an octopus Al Pastor trompo taco. The mesquite-fired item has a smokey-tinged flavor that pairs deliciously with the black pastor adobo, red salsa, guacamole, and onions. The original trompo was made with traditional red-colored adobo. It was created by chef Regino Rojas of Revolver Taco Lounge in Dallas, Texas, who gave the duo the recipe. Alex and Elvia added their signature Yucatán-inspired recaudo negro.
Other items, such as the Rock Lobster (a hard shell taco with lobster) and The Simmons (a beef tongue taco), comically nod to new wave and hair metal. At the same time, others, such as The Goth, a black tortilla taco served with a choice of carne asada, pastor or veggies, pack a spicy punch that intensifies with each bite.
“If I would have seen this 10 years ago, I would have fallen in love with it,” Elvia said. “That’s what I like and it brings our people here and also the curious people.”
From t-shirts to tacos
Queretaro-born Alex intended to be a rock star when he emigrated from Mexico to the U.S. in the summer of 2000. He jammed out with a heavy metal band in high school and understood that the lifestyle was more about fun and passion than making a serious living. His mom often told him to quit wasting his time and find a real job.
As an immigrant searching for work, he found it difficult to land a gig but had luck in the food industry. He had some kitchen experience growing up as the son of two bakers in Mexico and got to dabble in the different cuisines of the country each time his family relocated. He worked as a dishwasher and cook at different Asian and Italian restaurants and became a bit of a kitchen nomad, quitting his job at least once a year to find work elsewhere and develop his own culinary technique.
“I saw cooking as an art,” Alex said. “I started learning from people that I met in the kitchen and started asking questions. I used to go to the library and bookstores just to read for free because I couldn’t afford school.”
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As his experience in the kitchen increased, so did his responsibilities, and the fun of cooking became increasingly diluted by the added stress. To keep his creative spirit thriving, he began sketching t-shirt designs inspired by thrash metal pioneers Metallica, Slayer and others.
The venture was fulfilling for Alex, and in 2016, he founded the clothing company Evil Cooks, which would later evolve into a food pop-up. Part of the concept included the creation of the cartoon character Zeke, who has horns and a goatee and became the mascot for Evil Cooks alongside the logo influenced by the Misfits font.
In a similar search for a break from the standard kitchen and longing for more creative freedom, Elvia of El Sereno was searching for something fresh. She cut her teeth at Le Cordon Bleu College of Culinary Arts in Los Angeles and was part of the graduating class of 2008. In 2017, she came across Alex’s Instagram page, where they both shared a laugh over one of his designs that spoofed the political slogan “MAKE AMERICA GREAT AGAIN” to “MAKE TACOS GREAT AGAIN.”
The two connected over their love of cooking and heavy music, and in May 2018, they held their first event as a food pop-up, Evil Cooks, at Alex’s home in Azusa. They have since been tapped to cater private events, invited to cook at major events such as 2019’s Latin and indie music festival Tropicalia and along the way, they fell in love and tied the knot.
During the coronavirus pandemic, having a food pop-up worked to their advantage. Elvia was pregnant, and social distancing had impacted the restaurant industry dramatically. Some were forced to pivot to outdoor dining and some went out of business. Evil Cooks was already ahead of the curve as a pop-up, as they were accustomed to selling food outdoors. Rather than trying to find events and locations to cater to during the pandemic, they set up shop in their home’s front yard. They’ve continued to use their front yard as their storefront on Fridays and Saturdays but pop-up on Sundays in Smorgasburg.
“Setting up at home was a really good tool for us,” Elvia said. “The pop-up life was a blessing in disguise.”
Philosophy of food
The duo’s food is cooked with local ingredients sourced from Los Angeles. When they don’t make their own masa, they’ll pick some up from La Princesita Tortilleria off East Cesar Chavez Avenue. For the Garcias, cooking to invoke the flavors that remind them of their childhoods and elicit a similar response from their patrons is part of the reward that comes with cooking.
In the past, they’ve created items such as the taco de fideo, inspired by the quick tomato-based soup, a common staple in Latino households. Alex said dishes like their popular dessert tacos draw from their childhoods, where the dessert was often a warm flour tortilla with butter and sugar. “We like to bring up childhood memories, and we try to create plates by thinking as children,” he continued. “When they say, ‘This reminds me of…’ that’s a hit.”
Elvia created the popular churro cheesecake and flan tacos, which are served on a tortilla and taste like crepes. The flan taco centers a block of flan infused with citrus, candied coconut, and polvorones (Mexican cookies), garnished with orange peel and mint. The churro cheesecake taco loads up a mini churro on a slice of New York-style cheesecake topped with sliced strawberries and drizzled with strawberry sauce.
Despite their popular menu items, the pair didn’t have a set menu when they first launched Evil Cooks. They would pick up ingredients from the market and create the menu day-to-day. They installed a daily menu when their customer base began requesting favorite dishes they’d tried on recent visits.
“Honestly, we get bored,” Alex said.
To combat the monotony of a routine, the couple now host fine-dining kamikaze dinners in front of their Los Angeles home once a month. The dinner is a play on the Omakase menu, which leaves it up to the chef to create the menus for its patrons. The next seven-course kamikaze dinner, which includes a complimentary drink, is on July 20th and is open to all who direct message Evil Cooks on Instagram, but the space is limited to 20 people. Price for the dinners start at $99 per person but vary depending on the market price of specialty items like huitlache (Mexican truffle), black truffles, caviar, deer, alligator, lobster and others.
“We get to create new dishes according to our years of experience, and it’s become another way to express ourselves,” Alex said. “We put a lot of different stuff together with different Asian, Spanish, Italian and German influences. But, every dish has a common denominator.”
When asked whether the two would ever consider opening a restaurant or putting their kitchen on wheels, Alex winced and said a true rebel would say “never,” but as they get older, “everything hurts,” so they’re open to it but don’t have any immediate plans just yet. In the meantime, they want to continue serving the food that makes their patrons happy.
“Eating is something that we do every day, and sometimes we don’t stop to enjoy things,” Alex said. “We want people to realize that you need to enjoy food because that’s what it was made for; it was made to make you stop and enjoy the moment.”
Evil Cooks
Where: Smorgasburg in ROW DTLA, 777 S Alameda St., Los Angeles.
When: Sundays, 10 a.m.-4 p.m.
More information: evilcooksla.com.
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