The first time I had a meal from Lito’s Kitchen, my office ordered in lunch for an all-day meeting. I was handed a grilled chicken bowl, and after the first bite I demanded to know what and where the restaurant was. “It’s Lito’s, just down the road,” my coworker told me. I was confused. My office is on the Dallas-Garland border, surrounded by warehouses and manufacturing facilities. It’s not a restaurant district. When I brought Brian Reinhart to Lito’s last year during his pastrami sandwich hunt, he asked the exact same thing: “How is this so good, and why is it here?”
I sat down with Angel Villatoro, the owner and chef, to find out.
Villatoro says that chefs usually have an idea in mind, and then they hunt for the location. It happened the other way around for him: “I knew the guy that was here before. A friend of mine from working in the hotel business retired and started up his own sandwich shop. He called me six years later and told me ‘Hey, I think I’m burnt out. I’m going to find someone to take over this place.’ I was in the middle of selling my house at the time for something bigger, so I told my wife, ‘We can buy the house, or we can start the business.’ We started the business.”…