A guide to the restaurants making Mexican tamales in unique, exciting ways

If you’re lucky, an L.A. Christmas means you’re unwrapping some incredible tamales.

And if you’re really savvy, you probably have your go-to tamal lady.

If you’re both, you probably already know about Yesenia Trujillo Carranza.

“December is tamales season,” Carranza tells The LA Local. “It’s much busier for me, but I love it. I love anyone who really gets joy from my tamales.”

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Carranza has been feeding the Boyle Heights community hot tamales, champurrado and café de olla for 20 years.

“I have a lot of enthusiasm for feeding the community,” she said from her tamales cart, located across the road from Roosevelt High School at the intersection of South Fickett and Fourth streets.

Carranza makes her Guerrero-style corn-husk tamales fresh each day — preparing about 50 pounds of masa and offering sweet tamales, classic chicken, pork and queso con rajas.

The stand-out is definitely the tamales de pollo served with a vibrant green salsa that has just the perfect hit of spice to make you shout, “It’s a wonderful life!” this Christmas.

But Carranza isn’t alone on these streets.

Some of the best chefs and eateries in Los Angeles are elevating the portable masa meal to Michelin levels.

Don’t get us wrong, tamales like the ones Carranza and your favorite tamales lady sell do not need the glow up.

But these tamal makers offer a unique and adventurous take on the ancient masa masterpiece.

Komal

3655 S. Grand Ave., Los Angeles, Historic South Central

A tamal rojo from Komal.

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Marina Peña

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The LA Local

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Komal opened in September 2024 at Mercado La Paloma and immediately made headlines for being LA’s first craft molino, which basically means it makes some of the best masa this side of the border.

That masa excellence is on full display in their pretty and plump chuchito tamal, a staple on the menu. The chuchito is a ball of masa stuffed with pork and topped with roasted peppers, tomato sauce, and pickled vegetables.

“The chuchito is from Guatemala, and it represents my team. Most of the people who work with me in the kitchen are from Guatemala, so this dish is a way to represent them,” says Komal’s chef and co-owner, Fátima Juárez. “Without them, we truly wouldn’t be what we are today.”

The flavors feel like a heartfelt nod to traditional dishes found in Mexico City and Oaxaca. The tamales are made with Indigenous corn sourced directly from farmers in Mexico and nixtamalized on site.

“In general, the masa and its consistency make the tamal very light. It melts in your mouth, almost as if you were eating a savory or sweet cake. It’s not very dense; it’s juicy and has a lot of flavor,” Juarez says. “A big part of that has to do with how the masa is made, we don’t use lard; we use olive oil and grape-seed oil.”

For the holidays, Juárez has added some beautiful seasonal tamales. There’s a rojo that’s bursting at the seams with sweet corn and calabacitas, topped with a spicy red sauce. Komal also features a tamal verde with chicken and tomatillo sauce, along with a sweet tamal de leche made with oranges and strawberry jam.

Guelaguetza

3014 W. Olympic Blvd., Los Angeles, Koreatown

A mole tamal from Guelaguetza.

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Courtesy Guelaguetza

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Guelaguetza’s tamales are simply stunning to look at. Opening one is as close to unwrapping a Christmas present as it gets.

Founded by husband and wife Fernando Lopez and Maria Monterrubio in 1994, this ode to Oaxacan cuisine has become one of the most lauded restaurants in the country, thanks in large part to the late Pulitzer Prize-winning food critic Jonathan Gold, who once called Guelaguetza “the most accomplished Oaxacan restaurant in the United States.”

The tamales come carefully wrapped in a large banana leaf so that there is just enough of an opening to decorate the masa with the Lopez family’s legendary black mole. Inside, you will find a treasure of juicy chicken breast meat.

Lugya’h by Poncho’s Tlayudas

4301 W. Jefferson Blvd., Los Angeles, West Adams

Lugya’h by Poncho’s Tlayudas features a savory amarillo sauce.

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Erick Galindo

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The LA Local

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When the humble culinary genius Alfonso “Poncho” Martinez sunsetted his weekend pop-up Poncho’s Tlayudas for a six-day-a-week brick and mortar shop called Lugya’h inside the swanky Maydan Market, LA’s street food lovers both rejoiced and shed a tear. There was nothing like Friday nights feasting on Poncho’s tlayudas. But now we can get them all week long, and there are some added benefits like access to his beautiful Zapotec-inspired tamales.

“In the hills of Oaxaca, we wrap tamales with whatever kind of leaves we can find,” he tells The LA Local.

Lugya’h’s tamales are quite beautiful to look at, but they are also quite lovely to devour. They are turkey tamales wrapped in banana leaves and feature Poncho’s savory amarillo sauce, a blend of hot peppers, tomatoes and turkey broth.

A Tí

1498 Sunset Blvd., Los Angeles, Echo Park

A Tí serves a sweet dessert tamal.

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Erick Galindo

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The LA Local

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Chef Andrew Ponce says he opened his fine dining-style Mexican restaurant A Tí as a tribute to his father. “My father worked his whole life and still had time to make it to my little league games,” he explained. “So this is for him.”

Ponce admits he was never great at baseball, but he hit it out of the park with his dessert tamal. Ponce uses blue masa quebrada — a crumbly, more coarse masa from Kernel of Truth Organics — whipped butter and a blend of seasonal squash from the farmers market.

“It can be from kabocha green and red squash or red curry squash and honey nut squash,” Ponce tells The LA Local. “And I season it with piloncillo and warm spices.”

The sweet tamal is topped with soft whipped cream and a pecan crumble.

Tamales La Güera

Southeast corner of Broadway and West Vernon Avenue in Historic South Central

The guajolota by Tamales La Güera.

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Kevin Martinez

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The LA Local

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LA Local community engagement director Kevin Martinez swears by Elisa Chaparro Garcia’s guajolota — a hot tamal stuffed inside a bolillo, creating a thick tamal torta — because it’s the closest thing to a Mexico City tamal experience you can find in Los Angeles.

The combination creates a perfect balance between the melty ephemerality of the tamal and the sweet stickiness of the bread. The tamales are served with pork, chicken, queso con rajas, strawberry, pineapple or mole.

“The bolillo allows the tamal to linger a little longer in the mouth,” Martinez explains. “It’s not too soggy, not too dry, creating the perfect bite.”

Tamales La Güera has been serving her Mexico City-style tamales in South Central for more than 20 years and has become so popular that she opened a second stand across the street.

La Flor de Yucatán

1800 Hoover St., Los Angeles, Pico Union

The colado from La Flor de Yucatán.

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Marina Peña

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The LA Local

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This family-owned fixture in Pico Union specializes in Mayan-style, banana leaf tamales.

“Our tamales come from a family recipe from the Yucatán because that’s where our specialty is. We chose bits and pieces from aunts and uncles and made it our own,” says Annie Burgos, co-owner of the bakery.

La Flor de Yucatán has been in the neighborhood for more than 50 years, serving homestyle baked goods like hojaldra — a flaky, sugar-topped pastry with ham and cheese — and regional tamales.

Her parents, Antonio and Rosa Burgos, started the business after baking in their home kitchen in Pasadena in the late 1960s, with Antonio selling the goods door to door and from his vehicle.

“Yucatán is so far down in Mexico, so our tamales have more in common with those from Central America and the Caribbean,” Burgos says. “The consistency of the dough is different, the flavoring is different because you get some of the flavoring from the banana leaf itself, and the tamales tend to be moist.”

Today, they offer three classic Yucatecan tamales wrapped in banana leaves: the colado, a moist, fluffy tamal filled with chicken and pork; the tortiado, a hand-patted tamal with chicken and pork; and the dzotobichay, a chaya leaf tamal often filled with pepper jack cheese.

“My favorite would be the tortiado, but in all the pop-ups that we do, everywhere that we go, the one that reigns supreme is the colado,” Burgos says. “You can scoop into the colado, the other tamales you have to cut into.”