About Popoca
Popoca sits directly across the street from Swan's Market in Old Oakland, its narrow dining room painted in the soothing green of palm fronds at dusk, enfolded between brick and soft candlelight. Chef Anthony Salguero — who grew up in the Bay Area and trained in the kitchens of Saison and Commonwealth — opened Popoca as a pop-up in late 2020 and converted the project into a permanent brick-and-mortar in 2023. The name means “emits smoke” in Nahuat, the language of El Salvador's native peoples — a reference to the wood fires that have cooked Salvadoran food for centuries, and an accurate description of the kitchen's single most important piece of equipment.
The cooking is described as progressive Latin and Salvadoran, which in practice means Salguero takes the food he grew up eating — pupusas, curtido, handmade tortillas, long-braised meats — and applies the ingredient-driven California ethos and fine-dining technique of the kitchens he trained in. The result is not fusion and is not assimilation. It is Salvadoran cooking with better ingredients, more time, and a chef's obsession.
The Menu
The menu changes constantly but certain dishes recur because the kitchen and the room demand them. The pupusas — thick corn cakes griddled to order on the comal, filled with loroco-and-cheese or chicharrón — are the benchmark; curtido and a house-fermented red salsa arrive alongside. The wood-fired mole, built over days from two dozen ingredients, is the single dish most worth ordering first — it is as deep, as complex, and as emotionally heavy as mole should be. The handmade tortillas, produced from masa that Salguero sources from a specific nixtamalera in the Mission, are a quiet technical achievement that sharpens every dish they accompany.
The pollo asado al comal and the rotating wood-fired protein — often a whole fish, sometimes a suckling pig shoulder, occasionally a barbacoa lamb — are where the Saison-era technique shines. The mezcal and agave spirits list is one of the most thoughtful in the Bay Area; the short natural wine list and the seasonal agua fresca cocktails are worth exploring rather than ignoring.
Best Occasion: Birthday
Popoca is the right birthday restaurant when the birthday person wants to feel the evening has been considered, not just booked. The room is small enough that the staff notice every table; the wood-fire smell hits you at the door and sets the mood; and the food — shared pupusas, a mole for the table, a bottle of mezcal flight — generates the kind of communal dinner that birthdays should. Groups of six to ten are handled with real grace; reserve the long table along the brick wall.
For team dinners, the family-style ordering and moderate pricing keep the evening flowing without anyone feeling either hungry or over-served. For a first date, the conversation-friendly volume and the fact that Popoca is a real chef's restaurant — rather than a default-choice hot new place — signal taste without effort.
Practical Information
Popoca is located at 906 Washington St, Oakland, CA 94607 — the heart of Old Oakland, across from Swan's Market and a short walk from the 12th Street BART station. The restaurant opens Tuesday through Saturday for dinner only, from 5pm to 9pm (Friday and Saturday to 10pm), and is closed Sunday and Monday. Reservations via the restaurant's website or OpenTable are strongly recommended — Friday and Saturday book two weeks out, weeknights are more flexible. Street parking on Washington and 8th is reasonable; the Old Oakland garage on Broadway is a safer choice on weekends. Dietary restrictions are handled gracefully if noted at booking.