Mexico’s coast meets Los Angeles at Holbox in El Mercado Paloma thanks to the dedication of a chef who is determined to highlight the best of his heritage's cuisine.
The historic South Central gem is the culinary home of Chef Gilberto Cetina, who opened Holbox in 2016.
Cetina received all of his culinary training within El Mercado. His parents opened Chichen Itza — a restaurant dedicated to an authentic Yucatan menu — in 2001. Cetina wanted to broaden his horizons.
“I would always be playing around with, like, seafood specials and fish things because seafood is something that I’ve always loved,” Cetina said.
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Holbox was originally going to be a simple ceviche bar, but Cetina felt inspired by the space.
“We added a wood-burning grill, a charcoal grill, and we added entrees, a whole grilled fish,” Cetina said. “We added the grilled octopus, the fish tacos, the grilled fish tacos.”
Cetina did not want to stray too far from his Yucatan roots, but he did want to give customers a more diverse taste of his Mexican heritage.
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“There’s a whole world out there in coastal Mexican cooking that we decided we wanted to explore,” Cetina said. “So now, the menu at Holbox is really a representation of all different coastal regions of Mexico, but interpreted with the ingredients that we have here in Southern California.”
Holbox has a seasonal menu. Its offerings are dependent upon whichever fish are swimming along the California and Baja California coast.
“There’s a great network of small, family-run fishing boats with co-ops of drivers and producers and farmers with a lot of aquaculture in the Channel Islands,” Cetina said.
The restaurant received its name from a small island off of the Yucatan Peninsula in Mexico, where Cetina spent much of his childhood and made his “flavor memories.”
“All these memories of going to Grandma's house and eating pochetto or going out with family members to local restaurants or hitting up the local markets,” Cetina said. “That history that I have with Yucatan is really what I try to pull from to make the food here at Holbox, to take inspiration from those flavors.”
Cetina thinks that Holbox’s food is unique because it is “rooted in my upbringing, in my Mexican-ness.”
This Mexican-ness is showcased in the LA Times 2023 Best Restaurant Award and numerous Michelin rankings. Cetina’s priority, however, is doing Mexican cuisine justice.
“It is one of the great foods of the world, and I think exploring it as a Mexican, for me, is super important,” Cetina said. “I don't think I could convey the same passion through my food that I do if I was doing any other kind of food, because this is who I am.”
