Elevated Mexican street food restaurant from Cielito Lindo founder opens in Sacramento

Ramiro Alarcon established himself at Sacramento’s white-tablecloth Mexican restaurants. His new project relies on the country’s more humble dishes.

Antojo Street Taco Bar opened for takeout and dine-in service Saturday morning on the ground floor of the 118-unit Eviva Midtown apartment building at 1535 N St. Alarcon will be the head chef for owner Mauricio de la Rosa, who also owns La Garnacha Mexican Food on 16th and U streets.

Street food is inexpensive by design, yet 685-square-foot one-bedroom apartments in Eviva Midtown above Antojo start at $2,223 per month. Antojo’s website identifies its food as “street high cuisine,” with mains costing between $10 and $25.

“The Mexican food that I offer at Antojo is a mixture of traditional and contemporary with a dash of homemade simplicity,” Alarcon wrote on the website. “It characterizes itself with genuine flavors typically found in Mexican homes and it is enriched by the fusion of variously distinct cultures all around the Mexican republic.”

Despite its listed emphasis on tacos, Antojo’s menu is split relatively evenly into seven categories such as enchiladas, seafood and vegetarian dishes with two to five items per subhead. Alarcon has also added dishes such as mole poblano, enchiladas de pipian verde and budin azteca from his recently-closed East Sacramento restaurant Cielito Lindo Mexican Gastronomy.

The four types of tacos — pollo a la plancha (grilled chicken), pescado (fish), arrachera (skirt steak) and cochinita pibil (slow-roasted pork) — come three to an order in large corn tortillas with side salads or rice for $16.95 to $18.95. A full bar leans on tequila and mezcal cocktails.

The 2,800-square-foot restaurant, including an outdoor patio, had originally been slated to open as La Taquiza Street Taco Bar in fall 2018. Antojo (pronounced ahn-toh-ho) translates as “whim” or “craving.”

Alarcon left a job as Mayahuel’s executive chef to found Cielito Lindo in September 2013. The restaurant was open just seven months before a fire closed it for a year, but rebounded to earn three out of four stars in a September 2015 review by then-Sacramento Bee food critic Carla Meyer. Cielito Lindo had 4.8 stars on nearly 400 Google reviews before Alarcon closed it in late April, hinting at an opportunity to come.

“To our friends, customers, collaborators, and all who enjoyed the experience of eating at our restaurant: it is with a heart full of gratitude and deep appreciation that we say goodbye to embrace new projects,” Cielito Lindo wrote in a Facebook post in March. “We want to thank each and every one of you for your patronage and trust.”

Antojo will be open from 11 a.m. to 10 p.m. every day. It’s partnered with DoorDash and Postmates.