José Cepeda was just five in east-central Mexico when he started peeling garlic bulbs with his maternal grandmother. Those early kitchen sessions led to pastry lessons at a local culinary school, followed by a cooking career in the United States. Today, he’s the executive chef at Quixote, a Oaxacan-accented restaurant and mezcalería that opened in July at the freshly renovated Lafayette Hotel in San Diego.
“I was always around good food and good ingredients,” says Cepeda, recalling his childhood in Puebla. The chef previously cooked at contemporary Los Angeles Mexican restaurant Mírame and is no stranger to dipping into his family heritage to create soul-warming dishes. “Josh Gil [chef and partner at Mirame] called me the mole god,” he adds. At Quixote, Cepeda serves inventive riffs on family favorites.
Read on for all the reasons to dine at this enchanting Mexican spot right now.
Quixote’s menu spotlights heirloom grains, masa, and Cepeda’s specialty, moles. They include the bright and zippy mole amarillo, which flavors the restaurant’s tamal stuffed with mussels escabeche, plantains, and semi-soft menonita cheese. Cepeda relied on his grandmother’s recipe for the nutty green pipian mole that’s ladled onto the octopus appetizer. Aromatic mole negro, the most complex of Oaxaca’s seven signature sauces, plays a supporting role on Quixote’s tetela, a triangular corn empanada filled with duck carnitas. “There are some Californian flavors, but it’s all based in Oaxaca,” Cepeda says.
For a sweet finish, there’s cinnamon brioche and chocolate mousse, plus ice creams and sorbets inspired by Oaxacan flavors such as leche quemada (burnt milk candy) and prickly pear. Cepeda took cues from the ice cream stands next to Oaxacan churches. “As a kid, if you showed good behavior at church, your parents took you for ice cream afterwards,” he says.
Mexican spirits such as mezcal and Oaxacan rum anchor Quixote’s eclectic cocktail lineup.
Cepeda singles out the Vibras (Spanish for “vibes”), a guava-forward spin on a Paloma made with mezcal, bitters, lime, grapefruit, and seltzer. The tropical fruit plays a prominent role during the Día de Muertos festival in Oaxaca and is offered at altars to welcome back departed souls, Cepeda explains.
The Maria También, a mix of coconut, horchata, and pox—a Mayan spirit—is another showstopper. A handful of Mexican lagers, pilsners, and about 20 different kinds of mezcal round out Quixote’s drinks menu.
If Quixote feels like a house of worship, it’s no accident. The restaurant was built from a deconstructed Mexican church, as hinted at by its countless dripping candles. Hospitality group CH undertook a $31 million renovation of the historic space and plans to debut more restaurants and bars here in the coming months.
At Quixote, a salvaged pulpit doubles as the bar, baroque pews stand in for seats, and stained-glass windows wreath its interiors.
The restaurant is also furnished with a couple of rooms dedicated to mezcal sampling—one lies above a flight of stairs and another is wedged in its back right corner. “Kind of like heaven and hell,” Cepeda says.
“Each room is very different,” Cepeda says of the glamorous and meditative restaurant. “It reminds me of going to Sunday mass with my parents and grandparents.”
Quixote is open daily from 11 am to 11 pm.
Aarti Virani is a blog editor at OpenTable.
