{"id":331495,"date":"2026-06-11T02:03:24","date_gmt":"2026-06-11T02:03:24","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/331495\/"},"modified":"2026-06-11T02:03:24","modified_gmt":"2026-06-11T02:03:24","slug":"the-restaurant-that-taught-austin-about-mexican-food-is-closing","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/331495\/","title":{"rendered":"The Restaurant That Taught Austin About Mexican Food Is Closing"},"content":{"rendered":"

I don\u2019t often frequent a particular taqueria or restaurant, as my work as taco editor keeps me on the move. But for the last fifteen years, there has been one place I\u2019ve returned whenever my schedule would allow. Every time I was in Austin and wanted a quick, comfortable dinner, I visited El Naranjo,<\/a> the contemporary Mexican restaurant owned by Iliana de la Vega, who also serves as executive chef, and her husband, Ernesto Torrealba. The fourteen-year-old restaurant has announced it is closing on July 18, and heartbreak doesn\u2019t begin to describe my feelings over the news. I will lose a beloved space where I felt at home, where de la Vega was as likely to be seen sweeping or busing tables as working the kitchen line. Austinites will lose the restaurant that taught them about Mexican food and inspired other popular local establishments, including Nixta, Suerte, and Comedor.<\/p>\n

El Naranjo has been plagued with financial struggles for years, with 2025 being the restaurant\u2019s worst year. De la Vega considered closing the restaurant then, but in late summer, business picked up, and she signed a short-term renewal. Then, talks of closing El Naranjo restarted a couple of months ago. De la Vega describes the questions she would discuss with her team: \u201c\u2009\u2018What if we do this? What if we do that? What are all the \u201cifs\u201d that you can possibly imagine?\u2019 And finally, it\u2019s like, we just can\u2019t do it anymore.\u201d Sales of alcohol had plummeted, and there were fewer and fewer customers. Its location in a mixed-use building on South Lamar Boulevard made things more challenging. \u201cPeople know us as the restaurant next to the dentist office,\u201d de la Vega says. This befuddles me.<\/p>\n

When El Naranjo opened in a permanent building in 2012, it was likely the first restaurant in Austin to nixtamalize corn in-house. The ancient Mesoamerican technique is currently in vogue, but de la Vega was so pioneering that she didn\u2019t even advertise her use of it. Nixtamalization was relatively unknown then among the general dining public, but now the mere mention of it gets a restaurant national attention. After de la Vega won the 2022 James Beard Foundation Award<\/a> for Best Chef: Texas, El Naranjo should not have been suffering. It should have been flourishing. It should still be flourishing.<\/p>\n

\"Flautas Flautas. Photograph by Jose\u0301 R. Ralat \"Chilaquiles Chilaquiles. Photograph by Jose\u0301 R. Ralat <\/p>\n

I met de la Vega and Torrealba in 2010, when El Naranjo was a food truck. They were operating the mobile rig, with a pale, green wrap showcasing oranges, from the driveway of a small house that would eventually be El Naranjo\u2019s first permanent location on Rainey Street. It was at one of its covered picnic tables that my two-year-old son had his first flautas and mole. It\u2019s also where I had my first true mole negro made with the elusive chile chilhuacle negro, a pepper that had to be imported from Mexico. The experience was full of laughter from the thrill of the food and watching my son contort his face at the new flavors.<\/p>\n

De la Vega told me of her plans for the restaurant, including making corn tortillas from in-house nixtamalized heirloom corn, but tacos weren\u2019t the priority. Rather, the menu would feature masa preparations, such as tetelas<\/a>, triangular-shaped snacks filled with beans topped with queso fresco, and sopes, fried masa discs filled with meat and beans. They both would be novel to many Austinites more accustomed to the city\u2019s vibrant Tex-Mex scene.<\/p>\n

As I previously mentioned, the restaurant didn\u2019t advertise its nixtamal. De la Vega thought it was likely too foreign for diners, the Nahuatl-based word too difficult to pronounce. Now, nixtamalized-corn masa programs<\/a> are like flames for foodie moths.<\/p>\n

Such an approach speaks to de la Vega\u2019s humility and focus on food rather than trends. That mindset is what arguably got her the James Beard Award, though de la Vega was uncomfortable with the attention. \u201cI have mixed feelings sometimes,\u201d she told me over coffee last year. \u201cBefore, I didn\u2019t have the pressure of it, not that I mind having it.\u201d But de la Vega wasn\u2019t in it for the awards anyway. \u201cWe want real food. We\u2019re informal. We\u2019re not doing all those bending things,\u201d she says, referring to high-end modernist Mexican restaurants chasing Michelin stars. Many people don\u2019t know that de la Vega, Torrealba, and El Naranjo had been lauded long before their arrival in Texas.<\/p>\n

El Naranjo\u2019s first iteration opened in 1997 in a colonial home in Oaxaca in the center of which grew an orange tree, the restaurant\u2019s namesake. In 2003, Bon App\u00e9tit called El Naranjo \u201cthe soul of Mexico.\u201d In 2006, amid economic and social upheaval in Mexico, de la Vega and her family left their home and moved to Austin. In 2007, she found work at the prestigious Culinary Institute of America\u2019s San Antonio campus, where she established its Latin American foods program. One of her first acts at the school was to acquire tanks to nixtamalize corn and a molino to grind that corn into masa. She went on to work as a consultant for restaurants and university food-hall programs before building the Austin version of El Naranjo.<\/p>\n

In 2019, in the wake of Rainey Street\u2019s high-rise development and transformation into a nightlife hub, El Naranjo moved to South Austin in the hopes of increasing margins and attracting a restaurant-friendly crowd. It worked, for a while. There was, of course, the COVID-19 pandemic and its subsequent economic troubles. De la Vega promoted her daughter Ana Torrealba to chef de cuisine and included monthly specials focusing on foods from Mexican states such as Puebla and Chihuahua. But it hasn\u2019t been sufficient, a reality born out painfully in my conversations with the family. \u201cWe\u2019ve cried a lot,\u201d de la Vega told me during a recent phone conversation. The loss of El Naranjo is the loss of part of her identity. Ana echoes that response. \u201cIt\u2019s where I\u2019ve grown up. It\u2019s part of who I am,\u201d she says, pausing to stave off tears. \u201cWe gave El Naranjo everything,\u201d adds her father, Ernesto. \u201cIt gave us the opportunity to not only share Iliana\u2019s cooking but to also make new friends. Now we\u2019re losing a member of the family with the end of this cycle.\u201d<\/p>\n

Thankfully, the family has another business to focus on: culinary tours to Mexico overseen by de la Vega\u2019s other daughter, Isabel Torrealba, under the name Culinary Traditions<\/a>. The tours, which include cooking classes, restaurant meals, and historic sites, will continue, as will de la Vega\u2019s consulting at several universities. I will obviously continue to seek her extensive knowledge of Mexican food and its history, something I\u2019ve done before and during my time at Texas Monthly, especially for my Tex-Mexplainer<\/a> column.<\/p>\n

To be frank, of all the Mexican restaurants I\u2019ve mourned over the years, this one hurts the most. Now go make reservations. I\u2019ve already made mine.<\/p>\n

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