Trejo's Tacos: Recipes and Stories from L.A.: A Cookbook [Hardcover]

Hollywood’s baddest good guy shares 75 recipes that make Trejo’s Tacos the Los Angeles go-to for award-winning tacos, donuts, and more.

Long before he was a Hollywood star, Danny Trejo used to joke with his mom that they should open a restaurant. A few arrests, a couple boxing championships, and more than 300 movies later, Hollywood’s favorite bad guy did just that with Trejo’s Tacos. His unexpected journey from ex-con to actor to Narcotics Anonymous/Alcoholics Anonymous counselor to successful restaurateur is a true rags-to-riches story.

Now, in Trejo’s Tacos, Trejo not only shares 75 recipes for cantina favorites like succulent carnitas, vegan cauliflower tacos, and pillowy-sweet cinnamon-sugar lowrider donuts, but offers insights into his life and pays respect to his hometown, his roots, and all of the colorful characters who helped him along the way, creating a delicious tribute to L.A. and the city’s vibrant Latino culture.Danny Trejo is an acclaimed actor and restaurateur. He owns seven locations of Trejo’s Tacos, Trejo’s Cantina, and Trejo’s Coffee & Donuts in the L.A. area.How does a man known for playing merciless, shirtless, tattooed, gun-toting, vengeance-thirsty, knife-throwing tough guys become the face of a restaurant group selling award-winning tacos, authentic barbacoa, and kale salad? I say this a lot and Trejo’s Tacos is proof of it: It’s not how you start. It’s how you finish.

While I play “the bad guy” in movies, I’ve been a lot of things over the years, including a boxer, a bodybuilder, a drug counselor, and, for a while, a real bad guy—which is how I ended up in San Quentin and Soledad state prisons in the 1960s. It was in prison that I got clean alƒ¹