Baja Chef Behind Fauna Pops Up in Silver Lake Before His L.A. Debut

His Mexico City restaurant, El Tigre Silencioso, takes over Seco for a night, and then La Morocha is slated to open in the Arts District.

A chile güero taco served with a smoked-fish stew is coming to Sunset Boulevard for one Saturday, and it's just the warm-up for the chef behind it.

David Castro Hussong's Mexico City restaurant, El Tigre Silencioso, takes over Seco in Silver Lake on Saturday, L.A. Taco reported Friday. Then on Nov. 19 he's slated to open La Morocha in the Arts District, a restaurant its own website calls his Los Angeles debut.

Castro Hussong is the chef at Fauna in Mexico's Valle de Guadalupe. La Morocha's site says Fauna holds a Best Restaurant in Mexico title and has landed on the 50 Best lists for both Latin America and the world. The L.A. restaurant borrows its name from his original La Morocha in Ensenada. It comes from the group behind Mírate in Los Feliz and Daisy Margarita Bar, and Food Journal Magazine reported that Mírate's Matt Egan is his partner.

He isn't cooking Saturday alone. L.A. Taco reported that the short menu comes from him and chef Bernardo Galindo, with a kumquat ceviche and a tostada topped with kampachi chicharrón alongside the taco, plus tequila cocktails and a DJ. Seco, a wine bar at 3820 W. Sunset Blvd., is run by the team behind Santo, a Mexico City sushi restaurant next door, The Infatuation reported. It's taking reservations and walk-ins for the pop-up.

Back in October, Food Journal Magazine wondered whether the L.A. menu would lean on Ensenada's seafood or on Fauna's vegetable-heavy, live-fire cooking. The seafood won, going by the La Morocha dishes L.A. Taco named: aguachiles made with scallops, clams baked in the oven and tacos of rockfish chile relleno. Still, the restaurant's site promises wood-fired Baja comfort food, so the fire comes along anyway.

The room is on South Mateo Street, at No. 530 by Food Journal Magazine's count. It sits on the ground floor of a 35-story mixed-use tower that was still going up when that magazine wrote about it Oct. 22, and no date had been announced then.

In September, the Globe's fall openings list had La Morocha down for October. Now it's Nov. 19, and that makes Saturday's taco at Seco the surest thing on Castro Hussong's L.A. calendar.

Source: lataco.com, retrieved November 13, 2026. Other sources: morocha.la, foodjournalmagazine.com, theinfatuation.com.