Larry Cano, founder of El Torito, dies at 90

Gustavo Arellano, who wrote the book on Mexican food in America, calls Larry Cano "one of the unsung heroes of Mexican food's conquest of America," and says that he "popularized the concept of the sit-down Mexican chain." El Torito opened first in an Encino tiki bar, then spread across the region, though it now seems to be fading away. Cano died over the weekend after a short bout with cancer, Arellano writes at OC Weekly.

It was in Cano's chain that the margarita found its trampoline to become America's most popular cocktails. It was in El Torito where nowadays-clichéd ideas such as sizzling fajitas plates, tableside guacamole, Southwestern cuisine, nachos and so much more first found a mainstream audience. Hell, Cano's El Torito was the first non-taco Mexican food experience for swaths of the U.S.--and yet his story was largely unknown until the last years of his life….

Although he was a native of East Los Angeles, Cano moved to Orange County almost as soon as he found success with El Torito; local eaters of a certain era, in fact, might remember him best for his high-end Cano's in Newport Beach in the 1980s and for turning the old Victor Hugo Inn in Laguna Beach into the iconic Las Brisas. And while El Torito is slowly disappearing from the landscape, eclipsed by newer Mexican food trends, Cano's ultimate monument just might be those new trends--wouldn't have been possible without his good work.

Cano claimed in a 2011 interview with Arellano to have popularized the margarita in the U.S. "Any conversation with Cano comes with a side of such boasts. El Torito spread the practice of tableside guacamole, if you believe Cano. The sizzling fajitas platter. Flour tortillas with butter. A tortilla-making station. Taco Tuesday. The history of Mexican food is peppered with such fantastical, impossible-to-prove claims regarding the genesis of any number of foods and traditions—no fewer than eight origin stories about the margarita float around in writings on Mexican-American cookery.

"But in the case of Cano, the claims he utters are as close to true as any."