How a new chef saved El Luchador Mexican Kitchen

Six months ago, Lorena Telles walked into El Luchador Mexican Kitchen &Cantina in Henderson as its new executive chef. The heresies against Mexican cooking she found there were many and grievous.

The hot sauce was sweet. The salsa used red bell peppers, taken from packages of pre-cut vegetables. Chips and guacamole arrived in bags; so did the molé. The queso dip contained Velveeta. (Who is beginning to feel faint?) And so it went.

And so Telles — a native of Cuernavaca, Mexico, whose CV includes top chef gigs at Herbs &Rye and the famed Border Grill — did what she had to do. She rebuilt the entire menu, either replacing items entirely or changing how essentials were made, to create dishes Mexican people would call their own.

“When I first walked through, I thought, ‘Oh, I’m going to be working really hard,’ ” Telles said. “I didn’t like it when people said, ‘It tastes like it’s from the can.’ I wanted to do the food from home, how my Mom and Grandma taught me to do it.”

It’s not easy — nor is it inexpensive — to chuck one menu and introduce another, especially when you move from packaged foods to cooking from scratch. Food and labor costs increase, along with preparation times. New equipment might need to be purchased (it was). And how will customers take to the new menu?

In her overhaul of El Luchador, Telles enjoyed support from owner Andy Hooper, principal of Hooper Hospitality Concepts of Las Vegas, whose other projects have included The Black Sheep and Locale Italian Kitchen (both with James Beard Award-nominated chefs).

In fact, scrapping the menu was exactly what Hooper hired Telles to do. “It was a heavy undertaking,” he acknowledged, something he’d never done before in 20-plus years in hospitality.

“I’m a chef-friendly guy. I believe in giving the chef autonomy, in order to have Lorena express her artistry. Otherwise, you just hire a kitchen manager and cook from recipe sheets. It was a good time to get someone in here like Lorena, to get back to the deep roots of Mexican cuisine and culture.”

Massive menu changes

Telles got right to work.

The salsa? Bell peppers out, guajillo chiles in. The guacamole: now made every morning from fresh avocados. The rice is steamed, “the way we do it in Mexico,” the chef said. The queso dip blends Mexican cheeses, with a float of chorizo. The marinade for pastor tacos is Telles’ recipe: chipotle and arbol chiles, achiote, pineapple juice, apple cider vinegar.

The molé, also a family recipe, is an easier version than the famously complex renditions from Puebla and Oaxaca. The carnitas are spiked with citrus, cumin and onions. “Now you can smell it; now you can taste it,” Telles said. Unlike before, “there are no strange colorings.”

Enchiladas are stuffed with a choice of 10 fillings, including adobo, carnitas and shredded chicken, and topped with crema, like Telles does at home. Fajitas and chimichangas — Tex-Mex instead of traditionally Mexican — still benefit from the chef’s use of proper Mexican cheeses, salsas and marinades.

Weekend brunch features elaborate chilaquiles, a communion of corn tortillas, red or green salsas, onions, cotija, cilantro and the yolk of fried eggs oozing down the sides. Add shrimp, chicken or beef? Sure. Cilantro stems, left over from the salsa verde or the garnish, make their way into pesto.

“I don’t like to waste,” the chef said.

Telles is planning to add chiles rellenos and lengua tacos to the regular menu, and pozole and birria to the weekend menu. At the end of October, look for a Halloween pumpkin soup special, and for Dia de los Muertos, buns of pan de muerto, the sweet bread served to mark the holiday (Tuesday-Wednesday).

A second Luchador to tackle

“I’ve made a lot of changes,” the chef said a few weeks ago as she prepped for dinner service. “We need to settle in, see how the changes are working.”

Early returns, she said, were promising. “People are talking about the food. They’re recommending it to other people. That’s what I was looking for. You want to feel proud of every plate you put out the window.”

The remaking of the menu at El Luchador in Henderson is going to serve as a pilot for a similar undertaking, helmed by Telles, at the Luchador on Blue Diamond Road in Mountain’s Edge. A new sous chef has been training there during the day and working with Telles in Henderson at night.

Telles hasn’t introduced housemade tortillas, which almost require a separate operation, but they’re coming to El Luchador, she said. They’re the next step in fresh.

Contact Johnathan L. Wright at jwright@reviewjournal.com. Follow @ItsJLW on Twitter.