Almaya is the new point of Mediterranean-Mexican food from Lincoln Heights

By Hadley Tomicki for the taco

Originally published on February 11, 2025

Eat around Los Angeles long enough, and you would probably be surprised by a concept that merges Mediterranean influences with Mexican cuisine. We can count at least five places serving tacos in falafel in town and see our sidewalks fill with almost as many shawarma stands and smoked skewers that we make of taco trucks these days.

However, Nikki Abeskharoun, who directs Almaya to Lincoln Heights with his mother, Blanca Gonzalez, and his partner, Joseph Doubleday, continues to see confused customers when they take their Mediterranean-Mechanic menu, a month after the restaurant is opened.

“People are like, why are there kabob and burritos on the same menu?” Nikki said to Taco. “Having this reception is like,” Let me break down for you. »»

Almaya, which Aubekharoun understands means “water” in Arabic and “a gift from the love of God” in Hebrew, serves a tight selection of dishes, both geographically distinct and merged, of the way we naturally come to eat in various cities like the

This is the way Nikki grew up in Mar Vista herself. The daughter of an Egyptian father and mother from Mexico, Guacamole and salsa with your skewers, or stuff the turkey of Thanksgiving with bulgur wheat and freekeh, were natural couplings.

“I grew up with the privilege of having them both in the same cleaning,” explains Nikki. “We are a mixed family … Growing up, we made it appear in the house all the time.”

In Almaya, which anchors a catering area in one of the two imposing gentrification pillars shoulder to enamel on rue Barranca, you can have breakfast from a simple plate of Shakshuka, Chilaquiles or Machaca.

Or opt for a burrito breakfast based on fluffy eggs, fried potato builts and halal beef and ox chorizo, garnished with creamy jalapeno salsa, an impeccable Árbol árbol chili with cumin notes, or Tahini-Cilantro-Cilantro-Cilantro. A formidable salsas trio packed by the flavor that our team agrees are among the best we have had in recent memory.

Blanca, who has cooked the kitchen, has been preparing Mediterranean cuisine for years – and Mexican cuisine for longer, in its 35 years of professional cooking. She has always been an excellent cook, says Nikki, as younger of ten children who made a lot of cooking in Mexico and learning from her great-grandmother.

After coming to the United States and met Nikki’s father, she finally started sowing in Mediterranean cuisine about 15 to 20 years ago.

“Find inspiration in the difference in kitchens and see similarities too,” says Nikki. “She sort of attached them together.”

In Los Angeles, Blanca worked in the longtime restaurant short of the hookah of the city of the city of the city, Almaza, where Joseph also worked. Nikki met him while coming and dragging where his mother worked. Later, Blanca helped open the Esquina on the other side of the street, designing and performing its Mexican menu. The trio worked together at Samohi-Stalwart Pita House in Santa Monica then, where Nikki was a server.

Almaya was stimulated by Joseph, who grew up in neighboring Highland Park, and his desire to bring “healthy and traditional” cuisine in the northeast of Blanca, and pushed to make it a reality.

The concept opened its doors last month, January 10, and regularly sees regular customers who live and work in the neighborhood, even those initially confused by the merged menu.

The Taco team went to Almaya during a recent “Taco Tuesday”, on the recommendation of our colleague, Lexis-Olivier Ray, who delighted about the tasty and garnish lens soup which he paired with houmous and slightly fried pita by cycling in the neighborhood.

Javier Cabral, the editor -in -chief of the Taco, was delighted that his salmon kebobs were not too cooked and burst perfectly. A rarity in the kingdom of Los Angeles fish Kebob which promotes chariot on the delicate texture of fish.

The Burritos, beautifully balanced with chicken shawarma, falafel and Kebab Asada, and just the good proportions of beans and rice, all received enthusiastic thumbs and even rolling eyes in the head. The commands were served with swollen and inflated jalapenos, carrots and turnips stained with violets, as well as mango, Horchata and Jamaica lemonade, from two glass hives of changing daily and fresh frescass.

The Taco Tuesday special this day included tacos with falafel, chicken shawarma and the baja-beaten style sole with this coriander-tahini sauce instead of a chipotle cream. We appreciated the three, but the Shawarma tender, barely shaved a tripo but spicy like Al Pastor and served with marinated red onions, was my favorite. Nikki says that the latter dish has made an ideal way to have a halal version of the pastor.

Another day, I went crazy for this simple Burrito breakfast, served hot in a tortilla of toasted flour, with crisp beef, cheese and mild scrambled eggs. A big fan of Salsa Roja smoke from Blanca, I could not resist everything dirtying the Jalapeno cream just as delicious and thick which is good enough to eat with a spoon.

Despite the Egyptian heritage of Nikki, the influences of the restaurant tend to be more Lebanese, Syrian and Greek than Maghrebi. The dishes remain simple and rich with healthy vegetables. Falafel is light and crunchy, served on a kale of curly cabbage and made with the silky tahini of Blanca. Their chorizo ​​and their chicken sausage are both in the restaurant to comply with halal standards. One side of Labneh, Tzatziki, Houmous or Guacamole is always available. Corn tortillas are handcrafted with Masa from the Graciana de Sylmar, where their flour tortillas also come.

It sees a line line in the two kitchens in their “intensive use of spices”, including a lot of lime, parsley, coriander and fresh vegetables. All conducive to their mission to “collect the community”.

Almaya specials change daily, generally with a soup of the day, with such varied selections such as the lens or meatballs, and Tuesday tacos move each week to include recipes like Tinga, Calabacitas and Quesabirria.

Good Fusion consists in knowing when to relieve the brakes, much more than simply throwing creative amalgamation on the wall, as attest to all those who remember the craze for the novelty of the TACO in the early 2010s.

“I think breakfast items like Shakshuka, it’s hard to make it more Latin. Same thing with it, like the chilaquiles, ”she says. “You want to stay simple but don’t make a joke.”

In Almaya, Nikki’s intercultural education merges in a menu in a menu that gives you options that are both Mediterranean, Mexican and Mexi-Terrestrial without feeling as a pressure on the imagination or the norms of truth of anyone. It is a good healthy and clean food that absolutely explodes with a flavor, its adhesion to its influences all the perfect letters, that you come for the salmon kebab, the shawarma chicken burrito, the taboolah salad, the Birria de res plate or the favorite dish of Nikki de Kebab with chicken in a spicy cream.

This extends to the warm hospitality and, Yay, the dessert, which includes short, tights and nuts, rice and the caramel of indulgent cream.

We remember when the building where Almaya is located was once a dilapidated complex of houses, previously belonging to a semi-party wrought iron sculptor, where the anarchic parts have sounded all night. Viewed suspect by neighbors of the condos tower next to it, it was sold to developers to become “Barranca la”, the luxury apartments complex where Almaya is located.

Nikki and his team finally hope to move into a brick and mortar space in the future. Given their experience of hospitality, it would be logical to direct their own spectacle outside the food room they currently occupy.

“We would like to be more friendly with people instead of simply giving them their food and calling it one day,” she said. “We have always liked it. It’s more interaction with the public. “

However, they are very happy to connect with local residents of Lincoln Heights and the people who are passing during work at the moment, especially when seeing the same faces come back for another bite. Something that the taco plans to do more in the coming weeks to explore its large menu in the big kitchen.

“Okay, I will be back tomorrow morning for this Shakshuka”, we witnessed a worker of the screaming metro in Nikki a recent afternoon after she had just praised the lunch that she had just had.

“She actually gave us these flowers that we have at the front,” explains Nikki. “She is a very nice person. I have the impression that the biggest surprise is to see how the community said that she wanted something like that in the region.”

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