Chef Andrés Dangond admits to getting easily bored.
With the launch of his own ghost kitchen in downtown, he’s seeking the cure in a variety of original, delivery-only concepts.
First up is Tacos by Dres, in which the Colombia-born chef gives a Latin American spin to Mexican recipes. It is now delivering within a ten-mile radius of downtown L.A.
The menu comes with a full range of dishes dashed with different influences from South America.
Hot esquites come topped with Peruvian corn. Sweet and cheesy quesadillas are stuffed then drizzled with arequipe, the Colombian version of dulce de leche. Ají, a staple sauce of Colombia, appears often, from the creamy guacamole to the tacos.
“Mexico’s culinary history and foundations are crazy unique,” Dangond says. “But we share a lot of things: tamales, rice, corn, cumin, cilantro. We might season them differently or put in different ingredients, but South American and Mexican food match really well.”
Cross-cultural cooking comes naturally to this 34-year-old chef. His interest in food was first sparked by a certain duck á l’orange served at his family’s favorite Chinese restaurant back in Barranquilla, the city of his birth.
Following a move to Bogotá, he worked in his parent’s French cafe as a kid and moved on to an assortment of pastry and chef jobs throughout Columbia and other parts of the globe.
Following his older brother to Chicago, he later apprenticed at esteemed restaurants including Alinea and L20.
When boredom and disillusionment with the dining industry crept in, he reinvented his career in L.A., launching his own series of feasts known as “Dinner with Dres.”
The recurring pop-up offers changing menus that riff on his own past, from his childhood to the time he spent sleeping on sidewalks in Florence while travelling in his twenties and later adventures working in the wilds of Alaska.
Dangond is also the co-owner of the Cut, which started as a lauded food truck in Orange County before going brick-and-mortar in Irvine. There, one can order a burger called “the Colombian” that comes with smoked mozzarella, cilantro-laced chimichurri and roasted banana.
Now the chef is taking on what he dislikes about the food industry. And making some damn good tacos in the process.
These include a pollo a la brasa-spiced “taco de chicken” with garlic crema and hogao, a Colombian variation of sofrito.
There’s also a brisket taco with generous layers of fried provolone in an ode to Argentina’s preference for beef and provoleta.
As well as a signature “taco de pork” with braised pork shoulder and green plantain chicharrones that always slays at food festivals, he says. This one is inspired by lechona, the celebratory preparation in which Colombians gut and debone an entire pig, before stuffing it with ingredients like rice, peas, onions, garlic and spices and its own meat and organs before trussing and roasting it for many hours.
Every plump taco from Dres has a marked crunch, as if halted two-thirds on the way to becoming a taco dorado. Each comes smelted with gooey cheese on customized tortillas whose origins Dangond is bound to keep secret by an NDA.
He is also experimenting with a thin, arepa-inspired tortilla for the future, while tinkering with his next concept to launch from the ghost kitchen, a possible pizza restaurant.
Sides include stretchy queso, fried yuca and both braised and refried black beans.
For dessert, there is white pepper rice pudding topped with cilantro sugar and habanero-dusted churros with clove-infused chocolate sauce. And of course, those quesadillas we mentioned.
Dangond’s mission is not just to get his food into customers’ hands while hot and crispy. He also wants to change the way people order in.
Most recipes have vegan bases and can be made vegan. All containers are biodegradable, tamper-proof and merchandise sales 100% carbon neutral. All orders can be cooked in five minutes or less to go out the door.
He’s also charging for extras such as utensils and paper straws to try and limit the amount of trash his project
“Everything is to show the industry that we don’t need to create huge amounts of waste, not to profit,” he says. “I’m already expecting some resistance. But I just want to make people stop and think.”
In an era when restaurants are flipping their entire models to suit the current need for “social distance,” Tacos by Dres might be the right delivery-based business to arrive at exactly the precise time.
You can order now directly through the site.
all photos by Tacos by Dres
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