Mexico Restaurante y Barra

Photo: Natasha Bedu

The ebullient Larry Nicola has been a fixture on the Los Angeles dining scene for decades. Indeed, the Nicola family has been feeding the Southland pretty much since Pluto was a pup, having started out in SoCal as grocers. Larry – who's been well-described as a "serial restaurateur" – first shot to fame with LA Nicola in the Silver Lake section of town. He then headed for Beverly Hills to open Nic's, where patrons step into the ice-cold Vodbox to suck down elegant tumblers of vodka. And now he's in West Hollywood – in the heart of Boy's Town – offering his take on Mexican food at his garishly colorful Mexico Restaurante y Barra. We caught up with him over a margarita... or three...

Merrill Shindler: Have you gotten any letters from the legal department of Mexico, asking for its name back?

Larry Nicola: They're waiting at the gates. I'm a big lover of Mexico and the food of Mexico. I guess as long as the food stays good, they'll let us keep the name. [Orders a margarita.]

MS: Aside from your obvious love of tequila, why a Mexican restaurant?

LN: It all started with the old sign in front of the restaurant. I saw it in a store called Sonrisa, and I fell in love with it. Everything from the tablecloths to the beers started with that old sign that said "Mexico" on it. I've never created a restaurant out of a sign before. Everything else came from the family name, like LA Nicola. But this was inspired by a sign.

MS: There are Mexican restaurants all over town. For us, Mexican food is more American than a hamburger. How do you stand out from the usual guac-and-chips crowd?

LN: The goal was to make you feel like you're in Mexico. The food is different. It's simpler, cleaner – not just melted cheese on tortilla, but like a mother would make in Mexico. I always ask my cooks how their mothers would make the food on the rancho in Mexico. I want the food to be their food – not our version of their food.

Larry Nicola

Photo: courtesy of Mexico Restaurante Y Barra

MS: Which is why there's no enchilada-and-tamale combination plate?

LN: That's food for gringos. I want the food Mexicans eat at a fiesta. We try to make our meals like a party. All our plates are colorful. There's a spark of color everywhere. We've been asked if we bought every gallon of bright paint in town. I guess Carmen Miranda is an inspiration too.

MS: You're so authentic, you don't offer iced tea – no iced tea in the land of the iced-tea obsessives!

LN: They don't have iced tea in Mexico, so we don't have iced tea. They have agua fresca, which is what we serve. People ask for what they think a Mexican restaurant should serve. But if it's not authentic, we don't do it. And we don't serve bad tequila. We only serve the best tequila we can find. Take a sip – see how good it is. You can drink a lot of this tequila. But it can be dangerous.

MS: Does not being Mexican get in the way of cooking Mexican food?

LN: Mexican cooking is in my blood. It's in my soul. Growing up in SoCal, I spent a lot of my life there. I was hired to be executive chef at two major hotels in Mexico. I went down there to spend weeks researching food all over Mexico. 

MS: You've been creating restaurant concepts for decades. Don't you ever want to buy a McD franchise and settle down?

LN: A lot of people from my generation, the Boomers, like to re-create themselves. We're ageless, we're restless. I thought it was time to do something new. I love being here. And anyway, the space was available. It had a wood-burning oven, which I wanted. Wood-burning ovens are sexy. And, anyway, my cousins have the lease on the building. So, it was meant to be.

– Merrill Shindler