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Review: At la Diosa de los Moles, otherworldly cooking from L.A.’s mole goddess

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At la Diosa de los Moles, a Mexican restaurant that opened in Paramount in late 2017, the first thing you may notice is the oversize portrait of chef and owner Rocío Camacho posted near the entrance to her restaurant.

In the photo, Camacho is dressed smartly in a custom gold-embroidered chef’s jacket, her face beaming over the host stand. The caption underneath is the chef’s long-standing nickname: la Diosa de los Moles — the Mole Goddess.

The nickname is no empty boast. Camacho alchemizes large quantities of dried fruit, aromatics, chiles, nuts, seeds and a pantryful of revolving spices into otherworldly, 40-something-ingredient moles.

You can taste her lifelong allegiance to the craft in a dish of mole Oaxaqueño, an inky substance thick with ground chiles, toasted nuts, seeds and burnt bread ashes. The flavors catapult between smoke and spice and bitterness, roiling the palate in hypnotic waves.

If you’re a longtime mole connoisseur, there’s a good chance you’ve eaten the dish in another restaurant. In the last two decades, Camacho has cooked in top Mexican kitchens, most notably la Casita Mexicana, Moles la Tia and the ill-fated Rocío’s Mole de los Dioses in Sun Valley, ravaged by arson in 2015.

A native of Huajuapan de León, Oaxaca, she got her start in L.A. kitchens as a shrimp peeler, working her way to chef and independent restaurateur. (Along with la Diosa de los Moles, she also operates Rocío’s Mexican Kitchen in Bell Gardens). For a while, Camacho was a fixture on the Univision and Telemundo chat shows, where her story of perseverance and hard work played out in well-edited soundbites.

Steeped in a mole-making legacy that reaches back generations, many of her recipes are family heirlooms passed down through her maternal line. Camacho is an astute interpreter of inherited classics like the manchamanteles , her version of the darkly ruddy, “tablecloth staining” mole. It’s sharp with chile heat, lightly smoky, with a brooding spice that can be washed away only by large amounts of agua fresca.

Her mole Poblano balances bitter chocolate and pounded chiles with the sweetness of dried fruit. Mole verde is faintly tart and tangy with tomatillos and onions; her pipián rojo is lovely and tomato-rich with a tickle of spice.

There are currently about nine moles on the menu — the selections have been known to change — but I keep returning to Camacho’s pistachio mole, a voluptuously creamy, pastel green sauce lightly pinged with chile heat.

Moles are ladled over things like enchiladas, or teetering piles of rice and julienned vegetables and your choice of protein — the shrimp and filet mignon are solid options, although the meats are best used for mopping up errant pools of mole.

Camacho sometimes offers a mole sampler platter furnished with four varieties. It’s a splendid option when it’s available. A more reliable way to try various moles at once is to order picaditas , three masa cakes layered with shredded chicken and slick, heavy dollops of the mole Oaxaqueño, mole Poblano and the manchamanteles .

Beyond moles, there are crisp corn empanadas filled with squash blossoms, and griddled quesadillas paved with a paste of creamy, funky huitlacoche . Don’t miss the wonderful crema de elote , a silken-smooth soup of sweet white corn melded with sumptuous amounts of heavy cream.

Lately Camacho has been on a vegan kick, adding entrees like potato taquitos and hulking chiles rellenos stuffed with sweet potatoes. They are a nice alternative to the heavy proteins, pairing beautifully with any of the moles.

Along with regular table service, la Diosa de los Moles, which is open only for lunch on most weekdays, offers a daily brunch buffet that ennobles the genre with an assembly line of very good hot dishes: sweltering cauldrons of menudo; tacos de cazuela tucked into earthenware pots; stews of braised pork with nopalitos; and traditional clay pots brimming with mole Poblano (the mole selection on the buffet table changes daily).

On weekends, the dining room, festooned cheerfully with laundry-lines of papel picado and Mexican folk art, is open all day, filled with families and groups of people drinking mimosas and snacking on tortilla chips drizzled in mole.

And sometimes, amid the laughter and clink of stemware, you’ll catch a glimpse of the goddess herself emerging from the partially obscured kitchen, a cheerful blur in her chef’s coat. She has come out to mind the mole, stirring the clay pots on the buffet table before she disappears again into the kitchen.

la Diosa de los Moles

Recommended: Mole Oaxaqueño, mole de pistache, crema de elote , quesadillas de huitlacoche .

Prices: Mole plates $15-$22; soups and side dishes $6-$12, entrees $14-$21

Details: Credit cards accepted. Full bar. Lot parking. Wheelchair accessible.

8335 Rosecrans Ave., Paramount, (562) 740-8710

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Patricia Escárcega was a restaurant critic at the Los Angeles Times from December 2018 to April 2021. A Southern California native, Escárcega was born in Riverside to a family of naranjeros (citrus pickers).

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Rocio Camacho : The Goddess of Mole

The spirits of ancient Mexican deities may soon reside in Los Angeles, enticed across the border by chef Rocio Camacho.

Camacho's two San Fernando Valley restaurants, both named Rocio's Mole de los Dioses, or Mole of the Gods, bear uncelestial exteriors. But the gods would be charmed by their own images inside on vivid paintings, and they would be tempted by earthy, fruity and spiced aromas. They would be tantalized by the moles — saucelike concoctions of chiles and spices served with foods such as green cactus tortillas and filet mignon, alluring in ebony, cream and mauve.

The moles certainly attract mortals to Camacho's realm: a Sun Valley restaurant open since early 2012 and a Tarzana branch that opened in early May.

Camacho, who's about to turn 40, reigns over her kitchens with warmth, energy and passion — not at all earthbound in her dream of fusing pre-Hispanic ingredients with contemporary techniques. Nor is she reticent about her ambitions. "I talk a lot, right?" she often says with a grin amid torrents of Spanish.

Some liken her to the Like Water for Chocolate character whose food transmits her emotions. They imagine Camacho whisking delight into each dish as if it were one of the 30 types of chiles in her pantry. Indeed, Camacho only creates recipes when she feels upbeat and contemplative. "These dishes are very jealous," she says. "You have to give them your time."

Her restaurant's namesake dish, Mole of the Gods, stars the corn fungus huitlacoche, a delicacy since pre-Hispanic times. Other moles may feature tequila or coffee. Perhaps cactus or hibiscus flowers. Maybe rose petals, cranberry or tamarind. Or prickly pear, passion fruit or pistachio. The menu also may include grasshopper cream soup, cactus salad and "Monkey Meat" — pork smoked with sugarcane and guava leaves.

Camacho learned to make mole from her mother and grandmother in their native Huajuapan de León, Oaxaca. Her family descends from the Mixtecs, an indigenous civilization distinguished by artistry, pride and independence. The same traits shaped Camacho's entry to L.A. kitchens when she arrived here two decades ago in her late teens, already envisioning a restaurant of her own.

In her first job, at a nightclub in Bell, Camacho flipped tortillas, peeled shrimp — any task simple enough for a newcomer. She progressed to Lynwood's upscale La Huasteca and Bell's acclaimed La Casita Mexicana, then cooked no fewer than 15 moles at Moles La Tia in East L.A.; many are still on the menu. She brought some to La Huasteca before going solo in fall 2011 with the first Mole de los Dioses, in Bell. A larger location in Sun Valley followed, then the one in Tarzana. Camacho has since lost ownership of the first venture. (It retains the original name, for now.)

Camacho says she's a "fighter woman" who will keep "moving forward." Her next goal is to learn English, which despite two decades in the United States wasn't a priority compared with building a career and raising four kids. She also has big dreams, such as hosting a food television show and writing cookbooks, the first dedicated to mole.

"My restaurant is called 'Mole of the Gods,' but they call me 'goddess of mole," Camacho says. "After so much work, I feel accomplished. People are taking notice, and it's very good."

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Intrepid Chef Rocio Camacho Debuting Two New Restaurants in Paramount and Bell

More innovative cuisine coming from LA’s goddess of moles

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Share All sharing options for: Intrepid Chef Rocio Camacho Debuting Two New Restaurants in Paramount and Bell

No chef has done more to spread the gospel of Mexico’s mole in America than Rocio Camacho of Rocio’s Mexican Kitchen in Bell Gardens, where she’s been running one of the best traditional Mexican restaurants in LA.

In the former Corazon y Miel space , Camacho will open Mezcal y Tacos , featuring tacos de cazuela , Oaxacan style tacos de guisado, or stewed tacos served alongside organic mezcal poured into jícaras , the traditional gourds used for drinking the spirit in Oaxaca. The expected date to roll out Camacho’s first taco restaurant is late July and of course, there’s mole.

Camacho worked at La Casita Mexicana before later writing the menu for Tamales y Antojitos La Tia (aka Moles La Tia ), where mole tastings were the fashion of the day during her tenure and Camacho emerged as a local treasure.

She went on to work at La Huasteca, Don Chente (all of these restaurants still have recipes from Camacho) and then joined a pair of partners in the Moles de Los Dioses in Maywood (Now Mole de Los Reyes), Tarzana (closed) and Sun Valley, which was burned down by arson fire . Her former partners in Sun Valley and Tarzana have opened Chiguacle Sabor Ancestral de Mexico, whose menu unfortunately bears far too many similarities to the one Camacho had designed for Moles de Los Dioses.

It’s quite the compliment to have a half dozen copycat restaurants unwilling to change the menu after departing, but more than ever, Camacho is determined to leave her imitators behind with a pair of new eateries. Just when Camacho’s best work was coming from Rocio’s Mexican Kitchen, the restless chef has a few surprises in store for LA’s insatiable appetite for Mexican cuisine.

Camacho has also acquired Paramount’s La Terra Mia , a recently shuttered Italian-American restaurant and is busy transforming the interior for a design worthy of La Diosa de Los Moles , Camacho’s nickname. La Diosa de Los Moles, or the Goddess of Mole, will offer a half-dozen types of the Mexican specialty, similar to Rocio’s Mexican Kitchen featuring her signature renditions of mancha manteles , mole negro and mole poblano but will be looking to snag the local breakfast crowd as well.

“I won’t have huevos divorciados , or some of the plates everyone one has, but will serve plates like rabo de mestizo (eggs poached in salsa) and huevos tirados (a scramble of eggs and refried black beans) from Veracruz,” said Camacho as she showed off the bright colors of her new bar.

Count on lots of Mexican egg dishes, chilaquiles, entomatadas , the spicy scent of café de olla (pot coffee) drifting in the air and fresh baked bread from the pizza ovens left over from La Terra Mia. LA has never experienced the pleasures found in Mexico’s classic breakfast institutions like El Cardenal and Café Tacuba in Mexico City, Casa Oaxaca Café in Oaxaca or even nearby spots like Tijuana’s La Espadaña. Perhaps La Diosa de Los Moles, which will be open in a few months, will fill that void.

Mezcal y Tacos. 6626 Atlantic Ave, Bell, CA 90201

La Diosa de Los Moles. 8335 Rosecrans, Paramount, CA

Corazon Y Miel

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