Jo Lerma-Lopez

The Climb

Before Luna Mexican Kitchen, the work was already about building something durable. Jo Lerma-Lopez owned Upstairs Records recording studio in Downtown San Jose, Bay Area (1980–1999), a long span of ownership that suggests the same patience required in a kitchen that runs on process. That background sits behind Luna Mexican Kitchen (since 2017), where Lerma-Lopez has shaped a restaurant identity around place, routine, and the steady attention needed to make hospitality feel grounded.

Today

The signature at Luna Mexican Kitchen is tactile and immediate: handmade tortillas pressed by hand daily from organic, non-GMO corn. The craft is visible in the work itself, and that visibility gives the restaurant its pulse. Lerma-Lopez has said, “It’s all about making memories,” and at this level the line reads less like sentiment than method. The food is built to carry texture, aroma, and recall, with the kitchen’s daily labor doing the work of hospitality before the plate leaves the pass.

Signature

The strength of Jo Lerma-Lopez’s work is coherence. Luna Mexican Kitchen holds together because the ingredients, the technique, and the stated philosophy all point in the same direction. That kind of alignment is practical, not decorative: a restaurant built on clear sourcing, handwork, and a refusal to separate the idea of the place from the way the food is made.

In Their Words “What I love about our restaurants, it’s people come here and feeling something, and then we become the keepers of their memories.” “Luna is an acronym for Local Unrefined Natural and Authentic.”

Recognition

Jo's honors include MICHELIN Guide Bib Gourmand. It fits a restaurant where craft is measured in consistency, restraint, and the ability to turn everyday technique into something people return to.