Just a week into opening their first Long Beach location, Zarape is already drawing return customers. Not because it’s “settled,” necessarily—Stefano Mozher will be the first to tell you that opening week is a whirlwind of details, missing pieces, and the inevitable reality checks no amount of training can prepare you for.
“Week one, here we are rocking,” Mozher says. “It’s always the small little pieces: What’s missing? We need to fix this. We need to fix that… Reality hits.”
Stefano’s honesty is refreshing—and needed for both customers and staff alike. In today’s climate, impression is everything, with one-star Yelp! reviews coming from folks who were even offered a comped bill if a mistake was made. Despite their whether they’re warranted or not, they exist. And that means hospitality needs to be not just present but immediate. And Zarape isn’t here to be another casual Mexican spot. Stefano is proudly adamant that they are here to challenge how people think about Mexican food and mid-range restaurant hospitality—and what they’re willing to value.
In Belmont Shore, it is nestled between the upper-scale, wonderful Viaje and the lower, it’s-seen-better-times Super Mex. In other words: that perfect middle. And in a neighborhood built on foot traffic and loyal locals, Zarape’s timing may be as strategic as it is personal.
“I’m from Long Beach,” Stefano says. “That’s why. There’s always been a connection to here.
From Lotería Grill and $15 billion hospitality giants to Zarape in Long Beach
Zarape may be new to Long Beach, but Stefano and business partner Onesimo “Oni” Mendez are anything but newcomers to hospitality.
Both have spent decades in the industry—Stefano estimates three decades across both—and his resume reads less like a typical restaurant origin story and more like a behind-the-scenes tour through some of the largest hospitality and entertainment institutions in the country. Before Zarape, Stefano was deeply tied to one of LA’s most recognizable Mexican restaurant names, Lotería. (Before its quick expansion and its soon-after fall from grace.)
But Stefano’s experience goes far beyond independent restaurants. Mozher spent years working for Compass Group, a global foodservice powerhouse with contracts embedded into entertainment, corporate campuses, arenas, studios, and more. Stefano’s first contract dealt with Paramount Studios, managing fiftenen venues across sixty-six acres.
From there? He moved into Disney’s studio ecosystem. It’s a level of operational intensity most restaurant owners never experience—managing massive systems, constant travel, and clients who don’t just want excellence… they demand it.
“That was my life,” Stefano said. “And it ran itself into burnout, especially while Oni and I were at Lotería. Hence: Zarape.”
Why Zarape exists: “We’re different from superficial translation”
Stefano and Oni eventually returned to their roots, leaving the corporate contract world behind and rebuilding their restaurant vision with Zarape—first in West Hollywood during the pandemic reopening era, then now in Long Beach.
They opened the flagship in West Hollywood in 2021, in the thick of COVID’s bizarre business climate. But the question they kept returning to was the same: In a city overflowing with Mexican food, what makes Zarape worth seeking out?
“Anyone can serve me a taco. Any hole in the wall in LA—you already know that,” Stefano said. “So the message can be very clear. One hundred percent scratch kitchen. We have an average 20- to 25-minute ticket time, and I am unapologetic about that because we make it when you order it.”
“Everyone talks about their mom or abuela’s house having the best,” Oni chimes in. “She didn’t put what was on the table in ten minutes. That’s just a blunt fact.”
Zarape’s food is an ode to regional Mexican cuisine, highlighting the coasts and much in between.
Zarape offers a layered menu spanning traditional, modern, and hybrid interpretations of regional Mexican food. It plays with the old-school while melding Mexican food’s relation to contemporary methods and the American side of its northern border.
Taco samplers showcase the breadth of their protein offerings—from cochinita pibil and carnitas to birria and tinga—while corn masa empanadas—filled with chicken, tomatoes, onion, and crema—play with the idea of what tacos dorados could be. Their queso fundido is filled with quesillo and queso menonita rather than Jack, with the subtle hint of goat cheese to offer a tang that makes it one of the city’s best versions.
Their cucarachas a la diabla—giant shrimp in a mighty chile de arbol garlic sauce—are a proper diabla: plenty of heat, sliced with dots of cotija cheese and drops of lime. Their mole poblano, a source of particular pride for Oni, given his Oaxacan roots, is a beautifully silky ode to one of the world’s finest sauces. A cioppino gone Ensenada with charred jalapeños playing into the Italian soup staple. Fried calamari, where battered bits of squash and onion come with a molcajete salsa…
Zarape is as playful as it is representative of a cuisine that, even today, is still pushed into stereotypes about what it should be. And if Zarape can maintain its breadth while upholding its hospitality, it will easily become part of Long Beach’s Mexican staples.
Zarape Long Beach is located at 4702 E. 2nd St.
