SDM Guide to Food + Drink: Wolf in the Woods

That corn piñon soup hotwires your pleasure center, does donuts in your dopamine. SDM food editor Troy Johnson named Wolf in the Woods his “Restaurant of the Year” in 2024 because, as he says, “as soon as you walk into the place you almost get accosted by the charm of it. Are you even allowed to put a restaurant here? I think this is a house. And chef Carmine Lopez’s food puts big magic in small unsuspecting things.”⁠

It was one hit single away from not happening.
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“I promised myself if I didn’t make it in music on my own terms by 28, I’d move on and do something else,” says owner Johnny Rivera. “Well, I opened my first restaurant at 29 and a half.”⁠
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In 2000, Rivera and his friend—chef Andy Beardslee—opened Hash House A-Go-Go in Hillcrest. It was the “Smells Like Teen Spirit” of breakfast joints, the biggest hit. The line outside went on for years. They opened 11 of them across the country. And at that scale, the rooms start to feel a little numb.⁠
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So Rivera came back to Mission Hills and opened a Southwestern-food bistro in honor of his wife—a fifth-generation New Mexican. She’d taken him home many times over the years, incantated him on it. It’s tinier than tiny. On a street that looks one Beaver short of Leave it to Beaver. The menu from Lopez (a partner) is simple—out of design and necessity.⁠
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And it’s an absolute smash, the most special thing Rivera and friends have done.⁠
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“After all the time I’ve spent learning all these things,” he says, “turns out the best shit is done in three notes.”