Prolific restaurateur Steven Arroyo of Cobras & Matadors, Escuela Taqueria and more dies at 55
He built a collection of some of the city’s most influential restaurants and was dubbed “one of L.A.’s most ubiquitous restaurateurs.â€
Steven Arroyo, the prolific, attention-grabbing force behind Cobras & Matadors, Church & State, Escuela Taqueria, Malo, Boxer, Burger She Wrote, Cobra Lily, Potato Chips Deli and more, died at age 55 on Sunday due to medical complications from cancer treatment, one of his business partners confirmed.
In a career that spanned more than three decades, Arroyo established himself as a curator not only of cutting-edge culinary trends and menus, but also of talent. While not a chef himself, he knew how to find them. Some of the city’s most esteemed chefs passed through Arroyo’s kitchens, including Walter Manzke of République, Neal Fraser of Redbird, Brooke Williamson of “Top Chef†and Playa Provisions and vegan authority Jared Simons.
The restaurateur had been battling cancer for some time. On a Friday night in April, in the dining room of his freshly reopened Cobras & Matadors, he told the Los Angeles Times that only two weeks prior, he hadn’t been able to walk due to his medication. But he said he was also a fighter, and that the process of opening a restaurant and being surrounded by all of the familiarity and the excitement was helping him to regain his strength.
“It’s been good,†he said. “I think it’s healing, doing things you love to do.â€
Family remained a constant for Arroyo; at Malo, in Silver Lake, his mother inspired the restaurant’s menu and cooked in the kitchen multiple times a week. Throughout the years his children could also be found in his restaurants, sometimes working right alongside him.
Cobras & Matadors owner Steven Arroyo built a small empire through ambition and an uncanny intuition.
Whether overseeing the pickle-topped beef hard-shell tacos at Malo and Escuela, which just last week was named one of the 101 Best Tacos in L.A., or the decades-admired gambas al ajillo at Cobras & Matadors, the restaurateur had a hunch when it came to what Los Angeles craves.
“Arroyo seems to have an uncanny sense of what his audience wants to eat. Now,†former former Times food critic S. Irene Virbila wrote in 2001.
His brasserie Church & State, opened in 2008, not only attracted Manzke as a major chef, but it was also one of the earliest restaurants to establish the Arts District at the edge of downtown L.A. as one of the most desirable places in the city to eat and drink.
Arroyo’s culinary career began early. He was born in 1969 in West Covina, the eldest of three children and the grandson of the overseer of Bea’s El Burrito in East L.A. At 19, while selling coffee at the Santa Anita Mall, he pursuaded the cappuccino machine repairman to hire him. He went on to become a salesman for the company, and when one of his customers seemed unhappy, he bought her restaurant from her. Boxer was born.
There’s a small, seemingly doomed restaurant space on Beverly whose luck may just have changed.
“I’d always wanted to run my own small business, not necessarily a restaurant,†he later told The Times’ David Shaw. “It could have been a hardware store. But once I started visiting restaurants to sell them cappuccino machines, I got to thinking, ‘Hey, I’m pretty good with people, I could excel at something like this.’ I liked the idea of designing a room and having people come in and enjoy themselves.â€
His first restaurant debuted in 1995, its bistro menu blending Californian, Italian, French and Asian flavors to wide acclaim for chef Neal Fraser. “Boxer is the kind of restaurant we should see more of and don’t,†Michelle Huneven wrote in her Times review. It was a splashy launch that laid the groundwork for Arroyo’s next concept, the successful Spanish small-plates restaurant Cobras & Matadors.
When he debuted Cobras & Matadors in 2001, Virbila wrote that Arroyo had “taken the bull by the horns†with food that was “more rustic, and closer to authentic Spanish tapas than what anybody else is doing.â€
One of Arroyo’s most recognizable restaurants, Cobras & Matadors would expand and close and open — sometimes reopening in new locations — for years to come, usually due to a popular but illegal B.Y.O.B. policy, which shuttered it in 2023 for what Arroyo thought would be the final time.
“I’d been breaking — not even pushing, but breaking — that law for years,†he told The Times this spring while sitting in the restaurant’s latest iteration, this time on Melrose Avenue.
Earlier this year he received another chance and reopened his beloved Spanish restaurant in the former Spartina space, with a full bar, the way he’d always envisioned it. He decorated the dining room with art and photos from his own collection, noting that it was a reflection of himself and, in a way, an extension of his home to share with guests: a goal for all of his businesses, to feel comfortable and inviting.
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“My house is kind of empty because I just want to bring some of my home into this, because ultimately, that’s what it is; these three are my paintings, which I’m really proud of,†he’d said in April, motioning to a trio of pieces on the wall. “Then that’s by my friend Ashley.â€
“I hope it’s a success,†he added about the reopening. “We’re humbly trying a third time to flap our wings and fly high. It’s a hard business, it’s a very humbling business.â€
“Steven Arroyo is a master at conjuring up the right atmosphere for his audience,†Virbila wrote in 2004. “He isn’t into trendy. His is a hipper, grittier aesthetic, with an almost pitch-perfect sense of scene. Allergic to glitz, he evokes the urban and noir in his interiors, usually with a theme that’s barely sketched in, merely suggested.â€
Arroyo’s nearby Escuela Taqueria, a Beverly Grove institution “dedicated to pairing flavors with the corn tortilla,†also continues to feed the masses, as does adjacent smashburger destination Burger She Wrote.
Arroyo is survived by his children Lola, Pele and Luca; his life partner, Aimee Mcneilly; and multiple restaurants that continue to leave their mark on Los Angeles and the many ways it dines.
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