{"id":464897,"date":"2026-09-15T22:16:10","date_gmt":"2026-09-15T22:16:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/464897\/"},"modified":"2026-09-15T22:16:10","modified_gmt":"2026-09-15T22:16:10","slug":"escondido-taqueria-named-one-of-new-york-times-50-best-restaurants-in-america-san-diego-union-tribune","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/464897\/","title":{"rendered":"Escondido taqueria named one of New York Times \u201950 Best\u2019 restaurants in America \u2013 San Diego Union-Tribune"},"content":{"rendered":"

Mesa Agricola, a small taqueria in central Escondido that marked its first anniversary in August, has been named to the New York Times\u2019 2026 list of its \u201c50 favorite restaurants in the United States<\/a>.\u201d<\/p>\n

Owned by Baja California-raised chef Juan Gonz\u00e1lez and his wife, farmer Megan Strom, the restaurant at 707 S. Escondido Ave. is known for its true farm-to-table ethos. Virtually all of the produce used in their recipes is grown on their Valley Center farm 12 miles away. They also mill all the corn used in their house-made tortillas. And they specialize in serving a unique style of tacos known as taqueria de guisados.<\/p>\n

Guisados are regional Mexican stews and braises made with animal proteins, seafood and vegetables in slow-cooked creamy sauces and richly flavored broths. Gonz\u00e1lez prepares a continually rotating variety of 10 to 12 guisados each day. They also make their own aguas frescas and Basque-style cheesecake.<\/p>\n

\"MesaMesa Agricola\u2019s married co-founders, farmer Megan Strom and chef Juan Gonz\u00e1lez outside their ne Mesa Agricola restaurant in Escondido. (Lauren di Matteo)<\/p>\n

Strom said she and her husband knew something was brewing about a month ago when The New York Times reached out asking for some photos and other information. Then they got a follow-up email from Times food scout Eleanore Park in San Francisco, who had made a handful of undercover visits to Mesa Agricola months earlier.<\/p>\n

Gonz\u00e1lez didn\u2019t know Park, but he remembered that he\u2019d talked at length to a \u201cvery interested foodie\u201d about his mole sauce and other cooking details that ended up in the Times article. She wrote: \u201cMesa Agricola has only six tables inside and out, and a single dangling cactus as decoration, but the no-frills burritos and tacos feel suprisingly tectonic.\u201d<\/p>\n

Mesa Agricola is one of three California restaurants to make the Times\u2019 \u201c50 Best\u201d list. The others are Yerord Mas Bakery and Deli in Glendale and Bar Panisse in Berkeley.<\/p>\n

\"Fresh-madeFresh-made tortillas at Mesa Agricola restaurant in Escondido. (Lauren di Matteo)<\/p>\n

Strom said Tuesday that she and her husband are overwhelmed with gratitude for the Times honor. The recognition has helped validate the hard work that has gone into making their self-funded, mom-and-pop restaurant and farm businesses a success.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe thing about Juan and I is before we met each other, we devoted our lives to our craft. I\u2019ve been farming since my mid-20s, which is now almost 20 years, and Juan has been cooking for well over a decade. And both of those careers are strenous and can be quite lonely.<\/p>\n

\u201cSo when we met each other six years ago and started this business, it was important to us to stay authentic to who we are and the creative process. We took the long road and it was a long winding path,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n

\u201cI was revisiting an Insta post when we first opened (in 2025) and it was a call to action asking \u2018Is it possible for a mom and pop shop with no investors, no design firm and no PR firm to be fully supported by the community?\u2019 And now it feels like the answer is a resounding \u2018yes.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n

Strom and Gonz\u00e1lez met in 2019 at a restaurant in the L.A. neighborhood of Silverlake, where he was working at the time as a sous chef and she was delivering the specialty produce she grew on a large Coachella Valley farm that she co-owned at the time. They started dating during the pandemic and eventually moved together to Santa Barbara, where he worked at a couple of restaurants.<\/p>\n

They moved to San Diego in 2022 when she was offered the opportunity to farm a quarter-acre of land on the Rio Del Rey Heirloom Beans farm in Valley Center, where they now live. They started hosting farm-inspired pop-up dinners under their business name Mesa Agricola, with the goal of teaching diners the importants of cooking with fresh produce and proteins from local farms and ranches. They also had a culinary residency at a wine bar in Solana Beach before opening their counter-service restaurant in Escondido.<\/p>\n

Gonz\u00e1lez\u2019s cooking style is influenced by his Baja heritage and is focused in pre-Hispanic cooking techniques, like open-fire cooking and nixtamalization, which is a process of using alkaline-infused water to break down the outer layer of corn (known as maize in Mexico) to make masa for tortillas.<\/p>\n

One of Strom\u2019s top priorities over the past year has been to grow her own corn for the restaurant\u2019s tortillas. Her first hand-grown harvest will be ready in a few weeks. It will be an heirloom corn from Central Mexico. She\u2019s also planting corn from a seedkeeper from a Hopi Tribe reservation.<\/p>\n

Since opening the taqueria, Strom said Mesa Agricola has gradually built a loyal following of restaurant industry workers and foodies who appreciate and understand the work that goes into the food. But because the prices are a little higher than at other taquerias, and guisados are still a relatively unknown to many diners, she said it has taken time to build a foothold with the general public.<\/p>\n

Strom hopes the New York Times honor will change Mesa Agricola\u2019s \u201cbest-kept secret\u201d status.<\/p>\n

For now, the restaurant will remain a quick-service operation open Wednesday-Sundays only, with Gonz\u00e1lez doing all the cooking and kitchen management each day and Strom helping out at the counter when she\u2019s not working the farm.<\/p>\n

They\u2019re also talking about the long-term evolution of their business, which may involve more pop-up dinners where they have an opportunity to speak to diners in a more relaxed sit-down atmosphere. In the meantime, they\u2019ll be hosting a dinner Oct. 3 at the California Center for the Arts, Escondido, as part of the San Diego Tijuana International Jazz Festival. And they\u2019ll be cooking at Sage Hill Garden at the end of October.<\/p>\n

Due to the limited indoor space at Mesa Agricola, Strom said hosting dinners isn\u2019t feasible. So she\u2019s now working to build out a schedule that will allows them to travel, cook and spread their messages at other restaurants with similar food philosophies.<\/p>\n

\u201cI want to get Juan out there,\u201d she said. \u201cHis skill set is so diverse that it\u2019s funny that he\u2019s so well known for tacos and burritos. It\u2019s exciting where we will go from here and have growth that can be sustainable.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Mesa Agricola, a small taqueria in central Escondido that marked its first anniversary in August, has been named…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":464898,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[28],"tags":[387,7,967,10428,421,181,3054,412,1969,74,84,76,75,420,1696],"class_list":["post-464897","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-san-diego","tag-business","tag-california","tag-entertainment","tag-escondido","tag-food-and-drink","tag-latest-headlines","tag-north-county","tag-restaurants","tag-retail","tag-san-diego","tag-san-diego-county","tag-san-diego-headlines","tag-san-diego-news","tag-things-to-do","tag-top-stories-sdut"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/464897","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=464897"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/464897\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/464898"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=464897"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=464897"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=464897"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}