Introduction to Le Dräq: A New Chapter for Bäco Mercat and Bar Amá
The first reservation you need to make in 2026 isn’t for the splashy L.A. version of an Italian restaurant from New York City. Or the debut of another restaurant from a celebrity chef. It’s for the reopening (sort of) of Bäco Mercat. On Dec. 19, Josef Centeno closed the doors of Bar Amá, his Tex-Mex-leaning restaurant in downtown Los Angeles, and reopened the next evening as Le Dräq by Bar Amá and Bäco Mercat.
The restaurant is a hybrid of Bar Amá and Takoria, the self-described bizarro taqueria that Centeno debuted out of the space earlier this year. And the return of Bäco Mercat, a restaurant the chef closed in the thick of the pandemic in 2020.
The new signage at Le Dräq in downtown L.A.
(Josef Centeno)
The Concept and Menu of Le Dräq
“Bäco just kind of stopped during COVID,” says Centeno. “I don’t feel like I had finished what I started there and I’ve been trying to figure out the best way to bring it back without feeling like I was trying to repeat something.”
It’s difficult to quantify the influence Centeno has had on the city’s dining scene, or the contributions he made to what was once the great revitalization of downtown Los Angeles. At one point, the chef commanded the corner of 4th and Main streets with a cluster of restaurants this paper once dubbed the “Centenoplex.” At its heart was the petite, always bustling Bäco Mercat.
Opened in 2011, it was a place built around the bäco, a Centeno creation that was a soft, supple flatbread that blistered like a flour tortilla, with the thickness and chew of good naan. But the restaurant was so much more than flatbread sandwiches. Ricotta cavatelli with pork belly and soujouk. Chicken “ribs” doused in chile vinegar. Catalan-style cocas lavished with chicken escabeche, zhoug and spiced labneh. Centeno introduced Angelenos to a cuisine fueled by a smart, thoughtful and consistently bold oscillation of cultural influences.
