Coni’Seafood Helped Usher in a Golden Age of Mexican Seafood in L.A.
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Last fall, Connie Cossio, the chef and owner of Coni’Seafood, the award-winning Nayarit-style Mexican seafood restaurant opened a third branch of her family’s restaurant in Hermosa Beach. It’s Coni’s first foray into the South Bay, but the restaurant is already a Los Angeles institution: since the first brick and mortar opened in 2004, Coni’Seafood has appeared in both the Michelin Guide and the L.A. Times 101 Best Restaurants list, and remains a beloved first stop for many after deplaning at LAX.
The newest addition to the first family of Mexican seafood in Los Angeles is housed in a space that’s a classic American fishhouse with dark wood booths in an 80-seat tavern setting, complete with a patterned ceiling. Originally a Japanese-American sushi and teppan grill, many restaurants ago, the timeworn space is ideal for spicy ceviches, sauteed garlic shrimp, and butterflied and grilled whole fish. But before you head to Hermosa, it’s worth brushing up on the restaurant’s history.
The restaurant, founded by Connie’s father Vicente, opened in 1987 in the backyard of Connie’s childhood home in Inglewood. Vicente, who grew up in Acaponeta, Nayarit, had worked in the kitchens of Bay 90s, a Manhattan Beach institution, then Unky Roy’s as a waiter (both are now closed) in the ‘70s and early ‘80s, but was missing the botaneros (seafood cantinas) from back home. “During our summer vacations we’d go back to Acaponeta, hitting up a different botanero every day,” says Connie. “And when we got back home he’d miss those places, drinking beers with people from his town.”
At the city’s original backyard mariscos popup, Mariscos Chente, Vicente made shrimp ceviche, camarones al mojo de ajo, and aguachiles prepared with imported Mexican shrimp, in addition to other dishes he’d grown up eating. “He would always do mariscos for our family parties, quinceaneras, baptisms, and for the hangovers the day after,” says Connie.
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He opened his first brick and mortar on Imperial Highway in 2004 with a full menu, which is still in operation today. Connie took over the restaurant in 2005, rebranding as Coni’Seafood in 2009. She then opened a second Coni’Seafood in Del Rey in late 2017, and in 2025 turned her attention to Hermosa Beach for a third location back in her father’s old stomping grounds. Vicente is now retired, but at 81, his legacy and influence in bringing botanero culture, and raising the standard of Mexican seafood in Los Angeles, is still relevant almost four decades later.
We are driven to chase the hot and new, but Coni’Seafood is one of our Mexican restaurant institutions that’s worthy of preservation.
Today, there’s no shortage of viral backyard mariscos spots that drop in the feed, which is fantastic. But before Vicente Cossio, there were no local mariscos restaurants using fresh Mexican shrimp or fish, and no one had opened a genuine regional Mexican seafood restaurant. In his backyard popup and then at his restaurant, Vicente presented a more composed plating style that he’d learned as a cook in kitchen brigades.
At the botaneros in Nayarit, mariscos are a casual affair: the shrimp for the aguachile are casually strewn about the plate, and the vegetables are roughly chopped, but the freshness and flavor are unbeatable. Coni’Seafood captures the essence of these botaneros with added panache. Their aguachiles involve an elegant crown of head-on shrimp cooked in lime, thin halves of cucumber slices in between each shrimp, and interlocking rings of red onion at the center, all bathed in spicy lime juice.
Many of Vicente’s family members and former staffers went on to open their own restaurants, while others from Sinaloa and Nayarit followed his example and found their own purveyors to import quality Mexican seafood. It’s hard to find a new mariscos popup or restaurant in Los Angeles that doesn’t have a little Coni’Seafood in their DNA. The mound of shrimp ceviche mixed with colorful diced tomatoes, cucumbers, and purple onion flash cooked in lime have inspired high end mariscos restaurants like Holbox and Ceviche Project and more casual spots like Mariscos El Chuy and 106 Underground (now closed).
It would be hard to find more delicious versions of camarónes a la diabla (spicy shrimp), boozy camarónes borrachos (drunken shrimp), and their original, earthy camarónes a la pimienta (pepper shrimp), each in a rich sauce.
And ask any Mexican chef in Los Angeles: the pescado zarandeado at Coni’Seafood is legendary. Most important is the fish — robalo, or snook, imported from Sinaloa and Nayarit, that’s marinated an adobo then butterflied open and cooked on the grill, becoming expertly charred around the edges, with a smooth white meat that easily pulls away with a corn tortilla.The stunning dish is served on stainless steel platter that brings its charred edges into focus, framed by summery cucumber rounds and thin red onion rings. A contrasting side of Maggi and lime juice, marinated onions, and a stack of corn tortillas making your own tacos de pescado zarandeado complete the set. It’s the best in town.
We are driven to chase the hot and new, but Coni’Seafood is one of our Mexican restaurant institutions that’s worthy of preservation. Enjoying an evening of Mexican seafood from Acaponeta is one of the true joys of living in Los Angeles. This is the regional Mexican capital of the United States, where diners can experience spicy goat barbacoa from Tlacolula, Oaxaca, smoky Hermosillo-style carne asada, a hot bowl of caguamanta from Ciudad Obregon, and a zesty campechana from Acaponeta, all in one day. Restaurants here serve communities that know these flavors, and arrive with expectations that the food will be as good as it is back home.
Vicente merged the foodways of the botaneros in and around Acaponeta and added a little flair to offer a vision of Nayarit that’s pure Angeleno. Peppered throughout the menu are touches of Sinaloa, a neighboring state known for their chef-driven mariscos restaurants, plus recipes invented here in Los Angeles from the creative mind of a proud cevichero who served Los Angeles until his body could give no more. “My father has been working since he was six years old,” says Connie. “He really loved cooking for his customers.”
Bill Esparza is an award-winning writer based in Los Angeles. Follow him at @streetgourmetla. Follow @resy, too.
