With a motto that states “Mas Tacos, Mas Tequila, Mas Vida,” a trio of first time restaurant owners are taking their inspiration from family recipes and adding a modern twist at their new restaurant Más Mañanitas in Woodland Hills.
“The core of the restaurant is family recipes that are refined and taken from different parts of Mexico,” said Johanna Martinez, the co-owner and head chef of the restaurant, which opened May 1. Martinez owns the new eatery along with her wife Kathy Martinez and sister-in-law Karmin Padilla.
“The story behind this restaurant really is all about unity and family,” she said.
And obviously it’s about food with elevated dishes that include their versions of street food, seafood plates, moles, certified Angus steaks, vegetarian meals, of course burritos, tacos and fusion plates like a birria pizza and a traditional birria made from an old family recipe.
But it’s also backed by years of experience and a lifetime of sharing their love of food.
Martinez is a veteran of the restaurant industry. She’s a Le Cordon Bleu graduate who has been a chef for 22 years, working at places like The Cheesecake Factory and other chains as well as nonprofit organizations. She met her now wife and sister-in-law as kids growing up in Reseda where they were neighbors. The three shared a passion for food and family recipes.
“We always talked about the concept of the restaurant. We really wanted to bring something like when you come into our house it’s all about hospitality. You come in, you’re going to have a good time and good food. We wanted to bring that to the public,” Martinez said.
While Martinez is at the helm of the kitchen her wife and her sister-in-law can also cook, so the three combine their abilities to come up with the menu.
“The beautiful dynamic with Karmin and Kathy and myself is that I have the experience, but they have the roots when it comes to that real traditional Mexican cooking. Their background is their father cooking in a kettle in their backyard, cooking in a pit, making carnitas for the family,” she said.
“So they bring that real rooted tradition to the restaurant and I’m the one that brings the culinary driven fusion and I feel like the two mesh really well and it’s such a happy balance,” she added.
That happy balance has created dishes like Tio Tilo’s Birria. It’s made with a 12-hour-braised birra and served with a consommé. The recipe comes from her wife’s father.
“Once you get it to your table it’s served in a clay pot and as soon as you get it you get a hit of all of the chiles and herbs that have been cooking with it all day. The consommé isn’t too heavy, you’re talking about a nice clean, very earthy consommé topped with onion and cilantro,” she said.
To mix in the traditional with the new, they created the Queso Birria Pizza, which is made with Tio Tilo’s Birria and basically built into a pizza with a 12-inch flour tortilla plus Chihuahuan and Oaxacan cheeses mixed with traditional mozzarella.
“When you bite into it it’s just a pop of flavors from the spices of the birria. It takes you into your grandma’s kitchen and then you have the nice bright cheeses and then you have that nice crunch from the tortilla,” she said.
“When people come here we just want them to experience a good time, for it to be a celebration, a celebration of life with good food, with good communion with good drinks. That’s why we called it Más Mañanitas, more mornings, mas tacos, mas tequila, mas vida,” Martinez said.
Más Mañanitas
Where: 19723 Ventura Blvd., Woodland Hills.
Hours: 4 p.m.-11 p.m. Tuesday and Wednesday, 4 p.m.-1:30 a.m. Thursday-Sunday
Information: masmananitas.com
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