Broken Spanish Comedor feels like the neighborhood restaurant Los Angeles needs

Chicharrón reinvented in a soft and crispy pork belly pinwheel. Duck meatballs impregnated with smoky chipotle and bacon. Lamb neck, whose meat is as productive as a roast, previously steamed in tamales and currently prepared as a chili-tinged barbacoa on a fragrant consommé.

Broken Spanish, Ray García's modern Mexican pioneer, has been reborn, with some of his signatures intact. Many things feel fresh, too, including a change in identity: What was once an upscale nerve center for Garcia's ambitions has morphed into something closer to a neighborhood restaurant. The soul of the company remains, but a relatively mid-scale approach seems timely and welcome.

When Garcia opened the restaurant downtown in 2015, he innovated an expression of Alta California cuisine that seemed wonderfully specific to Los Angeles. His approach grafted the Mexican staples of his childhood in East Los Angeles with techniques gleaned from years in Eurocentric haute cuisine. His penchant for snout-to-tail butchery, as well as his lyrical low-food-chain dishes like dimpled chochoyotes in broth scented with green garlic and pasilla chiles, or lime-stuffed chiles stuffed with potato and kale, helped define the personal-narrative cuisine that reshaped our powerful culinary culture last decade.

Broken Spanish was located across from LA Live and its business was driven by customers who flocked to what was then known as the Staples Center for events. The pandemic wiped out its built-in audience. García was forced to close in August 2020.

He stayed busy with projects like Qué Bárbaro at DTLA's Level 8 complex, inspired by South American barbecue traditions, and Asterid at Walt Disney Concert Hall, which closed over the summer, and briefly at the Rose Venice. While I was always happy to see García's name appear in the mix, for me these efforts never reached the level of individualism that had made Broken Spanish so compelling and meaningful.

Maybe Garcia knew it too. He had been looking for a space to relaunch his marquee restaurant. When a promising lead fell through last year, he decided to reverse his ambition: Rather than restart full-throttle dining, he would move into a steep-roofed building in Culver City where previous tenants included Jason Neroni's Best Bet pizzeria, Roy Choi's A-Frame and, early on, an IHOP. García added the word “Comedor” to the name, a word meaning “dining room” or “cafeteria” and an implicit promise that he would continue working toward a grander broken Spanish.

Inside the Broken Spanish Comedor, located in a former IHOP, when dinner service begins.

(Ron De Angelis / For The Times)

Fortunately, nothing in this adaptation has the air of a middle stop. García is present, physically at the kitchen window directing his chefs every night, and also spiritually. In many dishes I feel the initial excitement and electricity that I remember from Broken Spanish a decade ago.

Whether you're just getting familiar with their style or experiencing it for the first time, try an order of refried lentils.

They are part of the original repertoire, a fun version of refried beans that include a legume that is not the more traditional pinto or black bean. The lentils are cooked with aromatics and extra handfuls of epazote, its wild herbaceous qualities, a flavor that García described to me in a phone interview as “delicious gasoline.” The serrano and onion add heat and depth during frying. Just before serving, the cooks add the cheese to the already creamy puree. When the dough almost resembles a string of cheese, it is ready.

The result is remarkably light, almost fluffy. Is that a trail of butter? No, they are vegetarians. It's my memory playing tricks. I used to order the lentils at the first Broken Spanish with a side of whipped carnitas fat that I spread first on the freshly made tortillas. That has been removed from the menu, rightly so. The lentils are opulent and complete just the way they are, and as an example of the menu price, $14 seems appropriate for the care and quality.

And speaking of tortillas: hand-pressed from blue corn dough, they strike the senses as delicate and sweet. Keep a basket of them on hand to dip into the chipotle sauce enveloping duck meatballs, or the walnut-toasted almond mole enrobing chicken thighs, or the tremendously juicy consommé served with slow-cooked lamb neck.

Chicharrón, crispy pork belly with garlic mojo and pickled red cabbage, is one of chef Ray García's meaty dishes at Broken Spanish Comedor.

(Ron De Angelis / For The Times)

Garcia's best new dishes underscore his flair for complexity that overlooks flashiness. Rounds of roasted purple sweet potatoes arrive topped with a mixture of salsa macha and butter, and generously sprinkled with chives. In the collision of spice, spiciness and crunch of seeds, and in the spongy way the potatoes soak up the butter, the intensity never seems too much. The smoked tuna, in a flute also rolled with gently melting Chihuahua cheese, is reminiscent of the shredded smoked marlin served in tacos at stalls in Ensenada. Santa leaf and fennel lend a subtle licorice perfume to a weightless spin on green noodles, finished with slices of avocado and a burst of parmesan.

The few ideas that fell short (bland chicken enchiladas with feta-tomatillo sauce, a baked vegetable tamale that leaned like a cake, a rainbow trout filet dressed a little too austerely with salsa verde) weren't lit up with the same exclamation points that mark everything else that lands on the table.

Nothing that a drink of mezcal with a touch of sour apple can't erase. The restaurant has quietly amassed an astonishing selection of agave and related spirits, in part, Garcia told me, because Broken Spanish was able to acquire the huge inventory of the now-closed Petty Cash Taqueria (which was also part of the Sprout LA restaurant group. The small bar displays only a fraction of its stock, and the list of mezcals in particular is already overwhelming).

You only need to wave your hand and bartender Genaro García comes out from behind his booth to ask you about your preferred flavors, styles, and price ranges, then returns with something unusual from a small family-run distillery with a rich history you probably know by heart.

The Rebelde cocktail combines white tequila, hibiscus, verjus, cinnamon and bitters. The restaurant has an amazing selection of agave liqueurs.

(Ron De Angelis / For The Times)

If you can't catch every detail he shares, it's likely because of the noise that I've noticed increasing exponentially with every dinner since Broken Spanish Comedor opened in October. I really don't care. It's great to see Garcia back in shape and connecting with diners in the same way. Some restaurants are finite expressions of their time and place. They close, reopen with surprise, and yet they cannot jump to where culture has advanced. This one does.

Pure deliciousness is eternally relevant. A casual room and a small menu don't diminish García's attempts with Broken Spanish. They make them easier to appreciate.

A variety of popular dishes including sweet potato, refried lentils with corn tortillas, chicharrón, green noodles and meatballs, with cocktails.

(Ron De Angelis / For The Times)