David Matias was 13 when he went to work at his family's west-side Mexican restaurant .
He hadn't finished the shift before his mom fired him.
His dad Alfonso pleaded for leniency.
"So my mom looks at my dad and goes, 'Do you want to go home with him?'" Matias recalled. "So then my dad turned around, pats me on the back and says, 'I'll see you at home, mijo,' and he sent me on my way."
That was the first time Teresa Matias fired her son. The second came years later, after David had graduated from the prestigious and spent months in his parents' native Oaxaca learning about its regional Mexican cuisine and customs before coming home to ÃÛèÖÖ±²¥ to put all that expertise into his role as Mosaic's executive chef.Ìý
"I went home and I was mad," he said of that day a dozen or so years into his tenure; he wouldn't say exactly what happened that led to the firing, but he admitted it was his fault.Ìý
"So I started writing a menu, and I started thinking about what I could do," he said. "It was therapeutic. I just looked at it, put it away."
It took him six years, a global pandemic and a devastating fire that shuttered the family restaurant for before he pulled that menu back out.
In September, it became the cornerstone of , the Oaxacan-inspired restaurant he and his longtime partner, Claudia Jeannette Erives, opened on ÃÛèÖÖ±²¥'s northwest side in the nearly 3,000-square-foot China Phoenix space at .Ìý
Matias is the third of Alfonso and Teresa's four children to open their own restaurants but the only one to depart from the Mosaic template.
Older sister Sylvia Garcia opened Ìý²¹³Ù across from the former Foothills Mall in 2002. Six years later, big brother Isaac brought Teresa's Mosaic Café to El Segundo, California, where he ran it for eight years.Ìý
"My brother was here 25 years. He is a classically trained chef ... and he always thought about going out on his own, but he stayed here with the folks because the restaurant was a big part of our lives,†said Isaac Matias, who now helps manage Mosaic with his parents.
The Matias family has run Teresa's Mosaic Café since the 1980s. From left, David Matias, Teresa Matias, Alfonso Matias and Isaac Matias.
“My mother cried when (David) decided to step away, but when he opened Victoria, she cried even harder. They are immensely proud," he added.
Victoria leans heavily into Oaxacan dishes and ingredients, from the Oaxacan black bean paste layered on the traditional large corn crisp Tlayuda Oaxaqueña to the Oaxacan-style mole dressing the Pollo en Mole Negro entree served with black beans and corn tortillas.
Black beans accompany most entrees, although you'll find pinto beans served on the breakfast menu's huevos rancheros with nopalitos salsa, a dish Matias made in 2010 on Food Network's "Throwdown with Bobby Flay" that was filmed at Mosaic.
Aside from the seven burritos on the menu, you won't find flour tortillas at Victoria either. In Oaxaca, corn rules.Ìý
"We're trying to stay true to our Oaxacan region, where we don't have flour tortillas ... and we serve only white rice and black beans," explained the 47-year-old father of four. "Oaxacan flavors are more earthy and there's also a lot of layers and components. We're making sure that the chiles and the spices are not just in the dishes, but are very present in them. You can taste something and say, 'Oh, I don't know what that is, but I can taste it and I like it.'"
Matias contrasted his mother's "fantastic cheese chile relleno" made with Anaheim chiles to Victoria's Chile en Nogada Oaxaqueño made with roasted poblano peppers stuffed with shredded pork loin and "at least 15 different ingredients."
"And then on top of that, we're serving it the traditional way, which is with a room-temperature walnut sauce," he said. "The walnut sauce isn't just a cream sauce; it's got layers of spices and seasonings and so you're getting a lot of different components."
Matias' scratch menu also dips into the French influences from his CIA training. His breakfast menu features a house frittata — made with grilled sweet potato, spinach, housemade chorizo and roasted chiles — and among his soups that include the chicken tortilla that he introduced years ago at Mosaic is a squash blossom creamed soup topped with sour cream and toasted pumpkin seeds.Ìý
"I have a tilapia that some people would look at it and say that it's kind of Mediterranean. We serve it with a beurre blanc," he said.
The El Chapolin Colorado cocktail at Victoria Cocina Mexicana features chile-roasted grasshoppers.
Matias also mines Oaxaca's rich history and cultural connection to mezcal in the house mezcal margarita and the El Chapolin Colorado, made with Perro San Juan mezcal, agave syrup and pomegranite and lime juices. Around the rim of the drink they add three chile-roasted grasshoppers.
"Three whole grasshoppers that are looking at you in the eye, saying, hello, how are you?" he said. "Welcome to Victoria Cocina Mexicana."
"Those are things that you may not find in a Sonoran restaurant, you may not find in a Oaxacan restaurant here in ÃÛèÖÖ±²¥, but you'll find it at Victoria because that's who I am," Matias said. "I am a Oaxacan man who was brought up cooking Sonoran food with my parents at their successful restaurant, but they sent me to a French culinary school, and now I'm back and I'm putting all those things together. I'm trying to present ÃÛèÖÖ±²¥ something a little different."
"My brother built a strong foundation here working alongside my mother all those years," Isaac Matias said.Ìý"We’re very proud of Victoria. It’s going to show the full potential of my brother.â€