I don’t often frequent a particular taqueria or restaurant, as my work as taco editor keeps me on the move. But for the last fifteen years, there has been one place I’ve returned whenever my schedule would allow. Every time I was in Austin and wanted a quick, comfortable dinner, I visited El Naranjo, the contemporary Mexican restaurant owned by Iliana de la Vega, who also serves as executive chef, and her husband, Ernesto Torrealba. The fourteen-year-old restaurant has announced it is closing on July 18, and heartbreak doesn’t begin to describe my feelings over the news. I will lose a beloved space where I felt at home, where de la Vega was as likely to be seen sweeping or busing tables as working the kitchen line. Austinites will lose the restaurant that taught them about Mexican food and inspired other popular local establishments, including Nixta, Suerte, and Comedor.
El Naranjo has been plagued with financial struggles for years, with 2025 being the restaurant’s worst year. De la Vega considered closing the restaurant then, but in late summer, business picked up, and she signed a short-term renewal. Then, talks of closing El Naranjo restarted a couple of months ago. De la Vega describes the questions she would discuss with her team: “ ‘What if we do this? What if we do that? What are all the “ifs” that you can possibly imagine?’ And finally, it’s like, we just can’t do it anymore.” Sales of alcohol had plummeted, and there were fewer and fewer customers. Its location in a mixed-use building on South Lamar Boulevard made things more challenging. “People know us as the restaurant next to the dentist office,” de la Vega says. This befuddles me.
When El Naranjo opened in a permanent building in 2012, it was likely the first restaurant in Austin to nixtamalize corn in-house. The ancient Mesoamerican technique is currently in vogue, but de la Vega was so pioneering that she didn’t even advertise her use of it. Nixtamalization was relatively unknown then among the general dining public, but now the mere mention of it gets a restaurant national attention. After de la Vega won the 2022 James Beard Foundation Award for Best Chef: Texas, El Naranjo should not have been suffering. It should have been flourishing. It should still be flourishing.
Flautas. Photograph by José R. Ralat
Chilaquiles. Photograph by José R. Ralat…