I’m gonna say it: Los Angeles is the best ethnic food city in the country.
LA’s the kind of place where you can buy twelve different flavors of microwaveable ramen, gallon jugs of Cuban garlic mojo sauce and Nigerian palm oil in the same afternoon – if you know where to look.
In a city obsessed with restaurant openings, $20 Erewhon smoothies and Trader Ming’s frozen foods, ethnic markets are what really make LA a global food city. But for many immigrant communities, native Angelenos and transplants alike, these markets represent the only way to bring an authentic taste of homelands to the city they now call home.
I’m a Miamian and son of Cuban immigrants who loves Los Angeles and never plans to leave. And I’m raising a kid who was born and is being raised here. Places like these are a way of passing on family traditions for generations.
These five mom-and-pop markets stretch from Glendale to the San Gabriel Valley to Mid‑City, and each one feels like you should need to get your passport stamped just to shop there.
Put all five on a loose weekend map and you’ve got a DIY “World Groceries of LA” crawl: Cuban Glendale mornings, Argentine pastry runs, SGV noodle missions, NoHo pantry flexing and West African spice hunting on the way back.
Snap photos of labels, ask questions and grab at least one thing you’ve never tried before.
A Little Havana in LA?
El Mambi Mercado
Glendale
328 E Chevy Chase Dr, Glendale, CA 91205
Walk into El Mambi Mercado in Glendale – the oldest remaining Cuban market in LA – and it feels less like a supermarket and more like a portal to Miami. This Cuban and Latin American market has been holding it down for more than 50 years, supplying island essentials to families who grew up on Café La Llave, guava paste and plantain chips.
It’s a family business and my favorite kind where you have the Mexican-American son-in-law, Julio Jimenez, behind the butcher counter marinating delicious Cuban pork legs called pernil for his father-in-law Fernando Casas’ little Cuban market.
The aisles are tight, but the shelves are packed with a rich assortment of Latin products. You’ll find frozen croquetas, yuca and tequeños, panela, Caribbean hot sauces, Dominican salchichón and longaniza and every kind of Latin pantry staple you forgot you missed.
They even have their own dry black and pinto beans by the pound. For Glendale, better known for its Armenian bakeries and malls, El Mambi is a vestige of what used to be the Cuban capital of Los Angeles in the 1970s.
Buenos Aires by the freeway
Rincón Argentino
Glendale
1375 E Colorado St, Glendale, CA 91205
Just a short drive away, Rincón Argentino in Glendale is where LA’s Argentinos show up for alfajores, yerba mate and enough dulce de leche options to ruin your self‑control.
It feels like a mash‑up of a butcher, market, bakery and nostalgia shop for anyone who grew up between Buenos Aires and the Valley.
In fact, according to the staff, this may be the oldest Argentine market in Los Angeles.
Stacked in the coolers and on the shelves are chorizos, cuts for asado, like entraña, chimichurri, alfajores and pantry brands straight out of Argentine supermarkets.
The bakery case is where you’ll lose your mind. The best Argentine empanadas in LA might be trapped in their tiny three foot tall glass case, which rotates and keeps a variety of beef, chicken, spinach and ham and cheese empanadas warm.
This is the spot to stock up for a proper parrillada at home or to build a board of Latin American sweets that will absolutely upstage whatever dessert you were planning.
Organized SGV chaos
San Gabriel Superstore
San Gabriel Valley
1635 S San Gabriel Blvd, San Gabriel, CA 91776
Head east to the San Gabriel Valley and step into San Gabriel Superstore: a shopping center and grocery store rolled into one where you’re better off speaking Vietnamese or Chinese than English.
It’s not glossy. It’s not curated. It’s chaos in the way only a true neighborhood market can be. Think endless aisles of kiosks and showroom-style shops, aunties locking eyes over live crustaceans and a serious selection of Chinese and Vietnamese products at the Shun Fat Supermarket that occupies about a third of the mall floor.
Superstore was founded in 1993 by Chinese-Vietnamese entrepreneur and seafood wholesaler, Hieu Tran.
You’re coming here for a fresh and live seafood selection half a block long, bags of rice bigger than your torso, fresh rice noodles, Asian greens you won’t see at Gelson’s, fish sauce in every size and that random snack you only recognize from trips to the 626 Night Market.
If you want to understand why SGV is the capital of Chinese and Vietnamese food in America, you start in markets like this.
The fancy pantry plug
Epicurus Gourmet
The Valley
12140 Sherman Way, North Hollywood, CA 91605
Epicurus Gourmet in North Hollywood plays a different role in this lineup: it’s less immigrant corner store and more “secret chef pantry” with a global obsession.
Tucked into an industrial pocket of NoHo, it’s where private chefs, caterers, small restaurateurs and serious home cooks go hunting for imported European and international goodies. Especially after LA County passed a new Microenterprise Home Operation program (MEHKO) in 2024, a place where you can get specialty wholesale ingredients at retail scale is a huge benefit for LA’s pop-up restaurant culture.
Carefully curated by owners Hilary Hirsch & Eric Gitter, think shelves upon shelves of high‑end olive oils, vinegars, conservas, mustards, pastas, tinned fish and sweets from France, Spain, Italy, and beyond.
You’re picking up jars and saying, “Oh, I’ve only seen this on food TikTok.”
Prices range from actually reasonable to special‑occasion splurge like the new caviar fridge.
But the joy here is browsing — building your own fantasy pantry with items that make even Tuesday pasta feel Instagram worthy. It’s technically a specialty importer, but it hits the same as any ethnic market: a continent of food stacked in one random industrial warehouse park in NoHo.
West African essentials
African Obichi Market
Mid‑City
4750 W Washington Blvd, Los Angeles, CA 90016
In Mid‑City, on the border of South LA, African Obichi Market is quietly stocking the ingredients you need for a proper West African kitchen.
It’s a small shop owned and operated by Nigerian-born Harriet Nyenke, but the shelves and freezers tell a big story: bags of garri, banku and fufu flours, palm oil, dried fish, stockfish, Maggi cubes, Dawa Dawa, kola nuts and a serious selection of frozen meats geared toward Nigerian and Ghanaian dishes.
You’ll spot hair and beauty products, household items and snacks that taste like childhood for anyone who grew up on jollof, egusi or pepper soup.
But if this is all new to you, like it was for me, the best way to shop here is with curiosity and respect. Ask the staff about a product you don’t recognize. They’re very helpful.
This is one of those places that makes LA feel less like a collection of neighborhoods and more like a global village stitched together with grocery aisles.
