On Wednesday, March 4, Lugya’h, located inside Maydan Market, will host its first communal dinner, marking a new chapter for the Oaxacan-rooted restaurant that has become a gathering point for food, culture, and community in South Los Angeles. The one-night-only event brings together gastronomy and storytelling through a four-course, family-style menu designed to be shared around a single table.

The evening is hosted by James Beard Award-nominated chef Alfonso Martinez, widely known as Poncho, alongside his partner Odilia Romero, an Indigenous Zapotec leader and nonprofit founder. Together, they curate an experience that explores identity, heritage, and belonging through food, honoring Zapotec traditions while reflecting the realities of Oaxacalifornian life.

Set at Lugya’h’s tiled communal table, the dinner moves away from the restaurant’s familiar tlayudas and moronga to explore a broader range of Zapotec-inspired dishes. The four-course menu highlights heirloom ingredients and time-honored cooking methods that reflect a deep respect for land, ancestry, and foodways.

Guests will be served family style at $119 per person, encouraging conversation and shared experience as dishes circulate across the table. The menu includes tartare de tasajó, made with flank steak aged and salted by Poncho and served rare, alongside anchovies on a tostada crafted from Lugya’h’s house-made heirloom non-GMO maize. A farmers market salad follows, leading into grilled skirt steak served with heirloom corn tortillas pressed in-house and a selection of Oaxacan-rooted salsas. The evening closes with a guayaba dessert prepared by executive chef Evelyn Gregorio.

The communal dinner reflects Lugya’h’s larger mission to highlight the intersection of tradition, storytelling, and the future of Indigenous cuisines. Through the lens of elevated dining, Poncho and Odilia invite guests to engage with Zapotec culture not as a static reference, but as a living, evolving practice shaped by migration, memory, and place.

Education is woven throughout the evening, offering context around ingredients, techniques, and the cultural significance behind each dish. The result is an experience that prioritizes understanding and connection, built on pride, hospitality, and a shared sense of community.

The Lugya’h community dinner takes place on Wednesday, March 4, from 6:30 to 8:30 PM. The dinner is held at Lugya’h inside Maydan Market, located at 4301 West Jefferson Boulevard in Los Angeles. Tickets are priced at $119 per person and are available for purchase via Eventbrite.

What began as a backyard pop-up in South Los Angeles has grown into a permanent home for Poncho Martinez and Odilia Romero at Maydan Market. Named after the Zapotec word for “the face and the hearth of the plaza,” Lugya’h draws inspiration from Indigenous markets in Oaxaca, where food and community exist side by side. The menu centers on Oaxacan tlayudas topped with house-made morcilla, tasajo, or chorizo, with tamales offered on weekends, all while celebrating the language, traditions, and lived experiences of California’s Indigenous migrant communities.

Maydan Market, created by chef Rose Previte, spans 10,000 square feet and is designed as a global marketplace anchored by a central live-fire hearth. The space brings together concepts including Maydan and Compass Rose from Washington, DC, alongside market outposts such as Golden Mountain Fried Chicken, Lugya’h, and Maléna. Club 104 offers rotating residencies, while Sook serves as a Middle Eastern convenience store and wine bar.