press reviews
Lifestyle! Eat & Drink
Bay Area mole
restaurateur on tacos,
beer and from-scratch
everything
By JESSICA YADEGARAN | jyadegaran@bayareanewsgroup.com | Bay Area News Group
PUBLISHED: July 28, 2020 at 6:45 a.m. | UPDATED: July 28, 2020 at 3:15 p.m.
Lito Saldaña’s culinary story is about timing, tenacity and taking chances.
Eight years ago, Saldaña was forced to close Cocina Poblana, his string of upscale Mexican restaurants. He had opened the Emeryville and Jack London Square restaurants at the height of the recession, when fine dining wasn’t foremost on people’s minds. But one section of the menu — moles — always did well, and no one in the Bay Area was focusing on the rich, 30-plus-ingredient sauces. So he did.
Saldaña grew up eating from-scratch moles in a small town in southern Jalisco, Mexico. He immigrated to the U.S. when he was 18 to work in his brother’s restaurants, and worked his way up, eventually becoming a restaurateur himself.
Albany’s 5 Tacos and Beers focuses on organic ingredients and local beer and wine
The Los Moles spinoff is gluten-free, meatless on Mondays and ruled by the number five.
Anna Mindess is a freelance writer and sign language interpreter who lives in Berkeley.
Like Mama Used to Make
By Clay Kallam
By Anna
PUBLISHED: Nov 5, 2021
If you visit 5 Tacos and Beers on a Monday, you’ll notice the Albany restaurant’s menu features tacos with nopales (cactus), portobello mushrooms, zucchini, corn, or other seasonal veggies. But the traditional beef, pork, fish, and chicken choices all have the day off. That’s because owner Lito Saldaña is so committed to the global “Meatless Monday” movement that he has crafted an entire vegan menu.
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Photography by Nico Oved
Like Mama Used to Make
By Clay Kallam
By Clay Kallan
PUBLISHED: Nov 5, 2021
At 5 Tacos and Beers, Lito Saldaña stays true to his Mexican roots.
It’s homestyle,” says Lito Saldaña about the food at 5 Tacos and Beers in Albany, “like my mom used to make.”
And since home was El Aserradero, a small village in southern Jalisco that clung to the ancient traditions, Mama Luisa did things the old-fashioned way. “We grew everything we ate,” says Saldaña, “so when I talk about homestyle, I mean organic. I mean fresh.”