One of the Bay Area’s best home restaurants has moved into a light-filled space in Oakland.
Cenaduria Elvira, which for years drew people to a sunny backyard patio in East Oakland for specialties from the Mexican state of Jalisco, is newly open as a full restaurant at 468 3rd St. near Jack London Square.
The menu is largely the same – the impressively large tostada raspada, a football field of fried masa laden with meat, beans and cotija cheese still graces nearly every table, plus deep-fried tacos dorados and housemade salsas. Some appetizers are new, including beans with pedacera and pork tongue in salsa. Plus, diners now can order beer, alongside drinks like horchata and hibiscus agua fresca.
The dining room at Cenaduria Elvira’s new restaurant in Oakland. (Elena Kadvany/S.F. Chronicle)
Elvira Varela, who was born and raised in Oakland’s Jingletown, started her eponymous restaurant there in 2020, serving tostadas and other Jalisco dishes out of her home on weekends. Chronicle associate critic Cesar Hernandez praised her tostada artistry as “on an entirely different level” and her tacos dorados as “elegant, with an ethereal crunch.” The restaurant steadily grew in popularity, landing a 2023 mention in a New York Times list of the best dishes in America. In November, Varela announced her plans to go brick-and-mortar in Jack London.
The new restaurant is airy, with light streaming in during the day from large arched windows, while more than 20 woven lanterns sway from the ceiling. There’s ample seating inside, plus an outdoor patio. Peach-colored walls are decorated with framed photographs of Varela’s food and cooking scenes from the home restaurant, where diners had a front-row seat to tostadas and tacos turning crisp and golden in an enormous vat of oil.
Here are three of the best dishes to order at Cenaduria Elvira.
A tostada fried in oil at Cenaduria Elvira in Oakland in 2022. (Stephen Lam/The Chronicle)
Tostada raspada
Varela started her business in part to celebrate this style of tostada, rarely seen in the U.S. She flies them in from an aunt in the town of Zapotlanejo, Mexico, where much of Varela’s family originates. They’re topped with a mild tomato sauce, cabbage and crumbled queso fresco, plus shredded pork or chicken ($13-$19; extra $3 for a mix). No matter the toppings, the edges of the masa stay snappy, while the center goes delightfully soggy after you’ve had several minutes to revel in its supremely crispy texture. (For takeout orders, the tostada is thoughtfully wrapped in its own plastic bag to maintain its texture.) Each bite, broken (or, later, torn) off from the tostada with your hands, can be doctored to one’s preferences with pickled onions, lime and salsas provided on the table.
Torta ahogado from Cenaduria Elvira, laden with sauce and pickled onions. (Stephen Lam/The Chronicle)
Torta ahogada
Hernandez named Cenaduria Elvira’s torta ahogada the best in the Bay Area. The sandwich ($13) arrives full of carnitas and a swipe of beans, and, true to its name, drowned in a puddle of tomato sauce. Ample pickled onions on top offer acidity. The bread, Jalisco-style birote salado from baker Oscar Gomez-Acevedo, impressively maintains its integrity in the face of so much sauciness.
Crispy tacos dorados from Cenaduria Elvira. (Stephen Lam/The Chronicle)
Tacos dorados
These golden, half-moon fried tacos ($3.50 each) can be demolished in a few bites. Varieties include potato, rajas (roasted poblano peppers) and requesón, a ricotta-like cheese.
This article originally published at People flocked to an Oakland backyard for these tostadas. Now they star at an airy new restaurant.