Back story: Tony Fok (who had been in the bar business) and Stephan Lemagnen (who used to have a dessert bar called Room 4 Dessert and who created the menu for Russ & Daughters Cafe) opened El Luchador in the fall of 2014. The tiny white building at the corner of South and John streets is the kitchen; most of the seating is outside or in the vintage Airstream Safari parked off to the side.

The vibe: Incredibly chill, El Luchador is about as Southern California as Manhattan gets. There’s some style inside—”luchador” means “wrestler” in Spanish, so you’ll see a bit of theming along those lines—but an intentional raffishness is part of the charm.

Menu: They’re still waiting on a beer/wine license, which should be approved soon.

Gold star: At the risk of overselling it, I loved being at El Luchador. Adam and I went for lunch on a Saturday: The weather was perfect, and we felt like we were on vacation in a scruffier, more interesting city. The staff was easygoing, and the food was mainly terrific. We (over-)ordered a vegetarian quesadilla (it had portobello mushrooms), a vegetarian burrito, and two fish tacos (below). The tacos, as TC readers had indicated, were delectable. Adam considered the quesadilla to be the best he’d ever had—which, to be fair, isn’t saying much because he rarely eats Mexican food and quesadillas are by their nature pretty vanilla.

Room for improvement: As you may know, because I’m always quacking about it, we try to avoid meat that’s not raised humanely, so we may have missed out on some of the tastiest options. (Mexican food, in particular, benefits from the savoriness of meat.) While the quesadilla was good, the burrito was extremely bland, with the ingredients in distinct clumps, so first you ate a wad of tortilla, then the iceberg lettuce, then the cheese….

Anything else? At El Luchador, as at many places, the cashier swivels the monitor around so you can enter a tip. I’m a crazy tipper when you bring food to my home, and I’m a generous tipper at restaurants, when good service is part of the experience. But if all you’re doing is taking my order and my money, then why on earth do the preset amounts start at 15 percent? No one even brings you the food! Worse, the percentage is of the post-tax amount. And even worse, you have to tip before they even prepare your order, so tip poorly at your own risk. Sorry for the rant, El Luchador—you’re certainly not the only one doing this—but those systems must have settings that can be adjusted.

Contact: 87 South St. (at John), 646-398-7499; elluchador.nyc. And they deliver.

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