Mesa Agricola, a small taqueria in central Escondido that marked its first anniversary in August, has been named to the New York Times’ 2026 list of its “50 favorite restaurants in the United States.”
Owned by Baja California-raised chef Juan González and his wife, farmer Megan Strom, the restaurant at 707 S. Escondido Ave. is known for its true farm-to-table ethos. Virtually all of the produce used in their recipes is grown on their Valley Center farm 12 miles away. They also mill all the corn used in their house-made tortillas. And they specialize in serving a unique style of tacos known as taqueria de guisados.
Guisados are regional Mexican stews and braises made with animal proteins, seafood and vegetables in slow-cooked creamy sauces and richly flavored broths. González prepares a continually rotating variety of 10 to 12 guisados each day. They also make their own aguas frescas and Basque-style cheesecake.
Mesa Agricola’s married co-founders, farmer Megan Strom and chef Juan González outside their ne Mesa Agricola restaurant in Escondido. (Lauren di Matteo)
Strom said she and her husband knew something was brewing about a month ago when The New York Times reached out asking for some photos and other information. Then they got a follow-up email from Times food scout Eleanore Park in San Francisco, who had made a handful of undercover visits to Mesa Agricola months earlier.
González didn’t know Park, but he remembered that he’d talked at length to a “very interested foodie” about his mole sauce and other cooking details that ended up in the Times article. She wrote: “Mesa Agricola has only six tables inside and out, and a single dangling cactus as decoration, but the no-frills burritos and tacos feel suprisingly tectonic.”
Mesa Agricola is one of three California restaurants to make the Times’ “50 Best” list. The others are Yerord Mas Bakery and Deli in Glendale and Bar Panisse in Berkeley.
Fresh-made tortillas at Mesa Agricola restaurant in Escondido. (Lauren di Matteo)
Strom said Tuesday that she and her husband are overwhelmed with gratitude for the Times honor. The recognition has helped validate the hard work that has gone into making their self-funded, mom-and-pop restaurant and farm businesses a success.
“The thing about Juan and I is before we met each other, we devoted our lives to our craft. I’ve been farming since my mid-20s, which is now almost 20 years, and Juan has been cooking for well over a decade. And both of those careers are strenuous and can be quite lonely.
“So when we met each other six years ago and started this business, it was important to us to stay authentic to who we are and the creative process. We took the long road and it was a long winding path,” she said.
“I was revisiting an Insta post when we first opened (in 2025) and it was a call to action asking ‘Is it possible for a mom and pop shop with no investors, no design firm and no PR firm to be fully supported by the community?’ And now it feels like the answer is a resounding ‘yes.’”
Strom and González met in 2019 at a restaurant in the L.A. neighborhood of Silverlake, where he was working at the time as a sous chef and she was delivering the specialty produce she grew on a large Coachella Valley farm that she co-owned at the time. They started dating during the pandemic and eventually moved together to Santa Barbara, where he worked at a couple of restaurants.
They moved to San Diego in 2022 when she was offered the opportunity to farm a quarter-acre of land on the Rio Del Rey Heirloom Beans farm in Valley Center, where they now live. They started hosting farm-inspired pop-up dinners under their business name Mesa Agricola, with the goal of teaching diners the importance of cooking with fresh produce and proteins from local farms and ranches. They also had a culinary residency at a wine bar in Solana Beach before opening their counter-service restaurant in Escondido.
González’s cooking style is influenced by his Baja heritage and is focused in pre-Hispanic cooking techniques, like open-fire cooking and nixtamalization, which is a process of using alkaline-infused water to break down the outer layer of corn (known as maize in Mexico) to make masa for tortillas.
One of Strom’s top priorities over the past year has been to grow her own corn for the restaurant’s tortillas. Her first hand-grown harvest will be ready in a few weeks. It will be an heirloom corn from Central Mexico. She’s also planting corn from a seedkeeper from a Hopi Tribe reservation.
Since opening the taqueria, Strom said Mesa Agricola has gradually built a loyal following of restaurant industry workers and foodies who appreciate and understand the work that goes into the food. But because the prices are a little higher than at other taquerias, and guisados are still a relatively unknown to many diners, she said it has taken time to build a foothold with the general public.
Strom hopes the New York Times honor will change Mesa Agricola’s “best-kept secret” status.
For now, the restaurant will remain a quick-service operation open Wednesday-Sundays only, with González doing all the cooking and kitchen management each day and Strom helping out at the counter when she’s not working the farm.
They’re also talking about the long-term evolution of their business, which may involve more pop-up dinners where they have an opportunity to speak to diners in a more relaxed sit-down atmosphere. In the meantime, they’ll be hosting a dinner Oct. 3 at the California Center for the Arts, Escondido, as part of the San Diego Tijuana International Jazz Festival. And they’ll be cooking at Sage Hill Garden at the end of October.
Due to the limited indoor space at Mesa Agricola, Strom said hosting dinners isn’t feasible. So she’s now working to build out a schedule that will allow them to travel, cook and spread their messages at other restaurants with similar food philosophies.
“I want to get Juan out there,” she said. “His skill set is so diverse that it’s funny that he’s so well known for tacos and burritos. It’s exciting where we will go from here and have growth that can be sustainable.”
Dining and Cooking