Cha Cha’s Latin Kitchen

Orange County thankfully has hundreds – perhaps thousands – of Mexican restaurants to choose from, many small and family-owned with compact menus. Located at the intersection of Irvine and Tustin, Cha Cha’s Latin Kitchen is a different story, serving Mexican and Latin-American food in a large, upscale space in the Irvine Marketplace. The original location in Brea opened in 2009, with Irvine following in 2017, each surviving non-trivial levels of restaurant churn in their respective areas.

For us, Cha Cha’s appeal has boiled down to several factors – high-quality tacos (best enjoyed with discounts and drinks on Taco Tuesdays), fantastic raw fish (aguachile and ceviches), and an environment that manages to feel light, festive, and clean rather than dark and confining. The main dining room extended into open-air seating well before the pandemic, and continued to benefit from fresh air throughout, even as handheld menus gave way to digital ones with QR codes. Service, speed, and timing have remained excellent, as well.