Giant Guatemalan Flour Tortillas Are Rolling Into Los Angeles

Los Angeles is home to the largest Guatemalan community in the United States, bringing rich gastronomy from the heart of the Mayan world to the Southland. From the dynamic street food destination of the Guatemalan Night Market in Westlake, where Guatemalan stands

thrive alongside restaurants and bakeries, to restaurants in neighborhoods such as East Hollywood, Van Nuys, and Panorama City, Los Angeles is a Guatemalan buffet. In Westlake, Chapines (a nickname for Guatemalans) snack on regional tamales, delicious recados (stews) like pepián, homemade sopa de gallina, crowd-pleasing pollo dorado y papas fritas, and earthy ceviche de conchas.

The latest Guatemalan dish to get a spotlight in Los Angeles is a giant flour tortilla from the Izabal Department, a northeastern region of the country, served at two-month-old Tortillas de Harina Chatias. At the restaurant, which first opened in late July at a temporary location in Van Nuys before relocating to Northridge just weeks later, the tortilla gets crowned with mayonnaise, meat, beans, potato salad, coleslaw, and salsa.  

A handful of other restaurants and stands in Los Angeles, mostly located around the San Fernando Valley, serve Izabal-style tortillas de harina. Churrascos Gualan LA, a backyard pop-up in Van Nuys, sells tortillas de harina enrolladas, stuffed like an open-ended burrito. The dish is also sold at La Sexta, a weekend festival in Sun Valley with live music, sports, and food vendors, and at a street stand in North Hills called Sabor de Mi Tierra. 

Tortillas de Harina Chatias, which expanded with a second location in North Hills on October 9, focuses on comida porteña Guatemalteca (Guatemalan port cuisine), in which the Garifuna cooking of Livingston and Puerto Barrios holds significant influence. Sisters Janissa Urrutia and Linda Urrutia, former teachers and generational cooks from Finca Yuma, Los Amates, own Tortillas de Harina Chatias; they named the restaurant after their mother, Arminda “Chata” Urrutia. “We are all cooks. My family has a restaurant called Chatias in Guatemala,” says Linda Urrutia.

Many menu items such as tortillas de harina are new even to the largely Guatemalan clientele. “Most of the people are from different departments and have never been to Izabal, so some of our plates are now more known in Los Angeles than in most of Guatemala,” says Linda Urrutia. She handles the restaurant’s social media marketing, having run social media accounts at Don Shuco and other Latin American restaurants in Los Angeles. Thanks to her marketing savvy, Izabal-style tortillas de harina are having a moment.

Janissa Urrutia runs the kitchen at Tortillas de Harina Chatias, serving familiar Guatemalan antojitos such as enchiladas (tostadas topped with beets, curtido,hard-boiled egg and ground beef, doused with tomato sauce) as well as caldo de gallina, but m ost diners come for a taste of Izabal. The regular tortilla de harina, which is the size of a medium pizza, gets brushed with mayonnaise, then topped with carne asada (or another meat), frijoles volteados (refried black beans), pickled cabbage, grilled potato, tomato salsa, and a grilled green onion. Diners tear off pieces of the tortilla, pick up toppings for each bite, and add more salsa and spicy escabeche from the table. The restaurant also serves a tortilla de harina enrollada. 

To meet customer demand, Tortillas de Harina Chatias offers another, unconventional version of the dish: a jumbo tortilla de harina with carne asada, carne adobada, longaniza, chorizo, pickled cabbage, potato salad, frijoles volteados, grilled potato, and plantains. Bigger and a little spicier than the regular tortilla de harina, it’s been a hit with guests. “People here like spicy food, Mexican spicy, so we make our sauces a little hotter, and other customers want more options – meat and side dishes – on the tortilla,” says Linda Urrutia.

On weekends, families come in groups of six or larger, often spread over several tables. Most groups order a handful of tortillas de harina and tapado, a Garifuna creamy mixed seafood soup that gets a hint of sweetness from green banana, plantains, and sweet peppers stewed with coconut milk. The restaurant’s tapado comes with a whole fried fish and rice and beans. “In Izabal we eat this with bread, but here everyone asks for tortillas,” says Linda Urrutia. Rice and beans are another specialty of Izabal. At Tortillas de Harina Chatias, coconut rice and beans come with protein such as carne asada, carne adobada, or fried fish, plus ensalada de coditos (macaroni salad) and pickled beets on the side. Izabal borders English-speaking and English-based Kriol-speaking Belize, where rice and beans are often served as an entree, and it’s the only part of Guatemala where these staples are called by their English name.

One and a half months after opening Tortillas de Harina Chatias, and now with two locations, the sisters are scrambling to keep up with demand. “We are trying to provide an unforgettable experience, but we can only offer counter service due to the high cost of business right now,” says Linda Urrutia, who is often seen juggling to-go orders while talking to customers waiting in line. “We decided to put all of our efforts into making great food and putting Izabal on the map.” 

Tortillas de Harina Chatias is open from 11 a.m. to 9 p.m., seven days a week, at 8968 Corbin Ave, Northridge, [phone], and 15304 Parthenia St, North Hills, [phone]