Instead, she’s looking to “replicate that nostalgia and that vibe of being seven to 10 years old, tagging along with my mentor figure. However, she’s not trying to replicate her grandmother’s cooking or the street food of Guadalajara markets directly. While working on her new pop-up, Contreras has found inspiration in her early days.

With this new iteration, Contreras has teamed up with bar veteran Michelle Ruocco, making dishes like maitake gorditas, sopes with cured duck eggs, and that knockout tres leches cake that developed a following at Nightingale. Now, she’s reviving her 2017 pop-up Chelo PDX, named for her grandmother, as a pop-up in residency at Filipino restaurant Magna Kusina. In late 2020, she opened her own restaurant, Nightingale, with bartender Chris Mateja, but she left in spring of 2021. Since her move to the United States, Contreras has made a name for herself in Portland, with time spent at restaurants Ox, Superbite, and Bistro Agnes. Home at her fonda, Chelo would serve what Contreras describes as “straightforward street snacks in Guadalajara,” including bags of peanuts and fried chickpeas. “She was the one who accepted (my) identity situation,” Contreras says. Often she would let Contreras wear dresses on these trips, before she had come out as transgender. Nicknamed Chelo, she would take Contreras to the markets to find food for her fonda, a small market attached to her home. Growing up in Guadalajara, Luna Contreras idolized her grandmother.

Chelo chac