A Tí in Echo Park Pushes Forth a Personal Vision of Mexican Cuisine

The crispy duck mole was years in the making.

The dinner menu at A Tí is short and sweet, with just over a dozen small bites, tacos, and desserts. (A recently launched lunch service on weekends features more casual offerings like tamales and pozole.)

But its signature entree, the crispy duck mole, is indicative of the level of finesse and skill in the kitchen. While the humble description on the menu reads simply “date mole, lime crema, pickles,” there’s much more going on here than meets the eye. 

The mole is a labor of love, made with 30 ingredients and three different chiles, punched up with the addition of surprising flavor and texture enhancers like burnt tortillas and animal crackers. Ponce was influenced by Pujol chef Enrique Olvera’s “Mexico from the Inside Out” cookbook and folds in a mole madre (akin to mother dough in baking) from an old batch into each new one. “We’re eating some mole from a year ago, which brings in more layers,” says Ponce of the complex flavors. The accompanying crispy duck leg is cured for four hours and confited for three before it’s fried and placed on a pool of the mole. It’s then paired with Ponce’s hand-made blue corn tortillas, made with masa from Boyle Heights’ Kernel of Truth Organics.

Ponce first attempted to make mole in 2018 while he was preparing a family meal for the Bestia staff. At the time, he felt like he had no idea what he was doing, but chef Ori Menashe reassured him that he was on the right track. “He was like, ‘This is great. Mole tells a story, right? It’s first bitter, then it’s spicy, and then it’s sweet,’” recalls Ponce. 

The storytelling aspect resonated with Ponce, and later, after working under Taco María chef Carlos Salgado and seeing him cook a duck mole, Ponce knew he needed to add his own version to A Tí’s menu. “That dish is really close to me because two of my mentors helped me complete that story,” he says.

The al pastor is also a sleeper hit.

While al pastor is ubiquitous across restaurants and taco trucks throughout L.A., A Tí’s version is worth writing home about (though Ponce stays modest about it). “I don’t really tell people [about what goes into it] because it’s a lot and I just want them to enjoy a good and unique taco,” he says. “If people ask, then of course I’ll tell them, but I don’t broadcast it on the menu either.”

Ponce starts with the coppa cut of Ibêrico pork, cures it with yellow koji, and then soaks it in a guajillo pineapple marinade before grilling it. The charred sliced meat is then covered with Ponce’s rendition of his favorite taco truck salsa (he’s especially partial to Leo’s light green-hued salsa de aguacate), using Sawtelle Sake’s amazake (a fermented rice drink) to thin out the sauce instead of water, which kicks up the sweetness and acidity. And in a nod to his time at Bestia, Ponce tops it off with glob of pineapple frutta mostarda — a condiment made by macerating pineapple with sugar and simmering it with chile flakes, bay leaves, and cinnamon.

The cocktails play with Japanese and Mexican flavors.

In the same way that Ponce’s mole is an amalgamation of old and new, the cocktails play into the restaurant space’s past and present. Ponce works closely with the bar team, hand-selecting the wines and spirits, and seamlessly blends Japanese ingredients and spirits into the Latin-forward cocktails. The margarita incorporates Okinawan citrus and yuzushu (a yuzu-flavored Japanese liqueur), while the salty plum Paloma nods to Japanese umeboshi. One of its most playful beverages is the michelada, which has a base made of tomatoes cooked down with dashi, giving it added depth, before it’s mixed with Modelo beer. The rim is coated in Turkish Urfa biber chili flakes, Ponce’s favorite spice at the moment. “It’s very simple and very L.A.,” says Ponce of his diverse inspirations.

Ask for a mezcal tasting. 

Ponce has a deep love for mezcal and the stories behind the mezcaleros who make them. Among the brands he carries at his restaurant, he’s especially fond of Agua del Sol, a company that specializes in small-batch mezcals. Their Madrecuishe is one of his favorites and is produced by Berta Vázquez, a female Zapotec mezcalera. (“There’s so much finesse behind it, and you can just feel it and taste it,” says Ponce.) Another one he’s fond of is Yuku Savi’s Pitzometl, which is produced from an agave marmorata plant that takes 25 years to grow and is endemic to the Puebla region of Mexico.

With his growing collection of mezcals, Ponce encourages his diners to ask for a tasting to go along with their meals. 

The music sets the mood.

A Tí is tucked inside a small and quiet plaza along a bustling section of Sunset Boulevard. The dimly lit restaurant (that still has much of the Japanese-style design of its former tenant, including blue and white geometric-patterned seat cushions) gives off the impression that you’ve stepped inside a secret bar. Much of the mood of A Tí is influenced by the music, which changes nightly depending on the crowd. Ponce likes to read the room and will adjust the playlist from hip hop to early aughts R&B, or from Sade to Mariah Carey. Sundays are reserved for souldies and oldies like Smokey Robinson. “I grew up listening to Art Laboe and it just feels right,” he says.

The food is connecting the chef to his roots.

In some ways, Ponce felt disconnected to his Mexican heritage while growing up in L.A. After immigrating to the U.S., neither his father, who hails from Zacatecas, nor his mother, who’s from Michoacán, wanted Ponce to want to visit their hometowns. Assimilating in America, they mostly spoke in English, so Ponce was never fully fluent in Spanish. It also never occurred to him to cook Mexican food professionally. So when Ponce began working with Taco María’s Salgado, it was the first time he really saw his culture’s cuisine through the lens of fine dining. He didn’t realize where the trajectory of that path would lead him. 

“By cooking this food, I feel closer to who I am,” says Ponce. “I always joke, ‘I may not be able to speak the language fluently, but I can sure cook it.’ This is my way of speaking it.”