A cook placing a handmade tortilla on a clay comal over a wood fire

Salvadoran wood-fire kitchen · Echo Park, Los Angeles

Fire, corn & memory.

Recipes from San Salvador's kitchens, cooked over live oak and served with the warmth of home.

Our kitchen

Every tortilla starts as fresh masa, pressed by hand and blistered on a clay comal. Every plate ends with a little smoke.

12hnixtamalized corn, daily

100%live oak fire, no gas

3generations of recipes

Corn, loroco, dried chiles, cacao and limes on dark wood

From the embers

Signature plates

Four dishes that tell our story. Scroll through, then find them on the full menu below.

01 — Small plates

Pupusas on a volcanic stone plate with curtido and salsa

Pupusas de loroco

Hand-patted masa, quesillo and loroco flower, curtido and roasted tomato salsa.

02 — From the fire

Whole grilled red snapper with charred lime

Whole snapper a la brasa

Charred over oak, chile-lime butter, cilantro and grilled limes. For two.

03 — Sweets

Slice of sesame quesadilla cake with cinnamon ice cream and plantains

Quesadilla salvadoreña

Warm sesame cheese cake, cinnamon ice cream and caramelized plantain.

04 — Bar

Horchata cocktail in a coupe with a cinnamon stick

Horchata sour

Morro-seed horchata, aged rum, cinnamon and a whisper of cacao.

Chef with arms crossed in front of the wood fire

Our story

A kitchen that smells like home

Chef Mateo Alvarado learned to cook next to his grandmother's comal in Santa Ana, El Salvador. When he moved to Los Angeles, the one thing he couldn't find was the smell of that kitchen: corn, smoke and loroco in the air.

So he built it. Maíz & Brasa is his grandmother's recipes, cooked the only way she knew — over real fire, without shortcuts.

— Mateo Alvarado

“The best table in Echo Park is the one closest to the fire.”— LA food guide (sample review)

Visit us

Pull up a chair

Where: Sunset Blvd, Echo Park
Los Angeles, CA
Dinner: Tuesday – Sunday · 5:00 – 11:00 pm
Brunch: Saturday & Sunday · 10:00 am – 2:00 pm
Contact: (213) 555-0147 · hola@maizybrasa.com