THIS RESTAURANT IS CLOSED Cha Cha Cha

THIS RESTAURANT IS CLOSED Cha Cha Cha Restaurant Review:

This tiny restaurant in a not-too-inviting section of East Hollywood was the rage of the artist community (notably David Hockney) when it first opened and made the reputation of chef Toribio Prado. While he’s gone on to other pursuits, his family and friends still supervise the cuisine (as they do in countless restaurants all over town --- over 14 relatives working in kitchens certainly make the Prados an L.A. food dynasty if there ever was one) and the recipes are his original interpretations of Caribbean and Latin American ideas as blended into the L.A. multicultural mindset. While the menu offers a generous array of tapas and paellas, we like the banana boat appetizers, plantain boats filled with ground beef and vegetables, and the spicier chicken dishes such as the Jamaican jerk chicken marinated in jerk spices. And while the new and creative ideas no longer happen here first now that Prado is gone, they maintain the consistency and quality of his originals in his absence.