Costa Mesa’s Taco Maria soon to reopen after brief coronavirus closure

One of Orange County’s only Michelin-starred restaurants, Taco Maria, has temporarily closed as a COVID-19-related precaution.

The upscale Mexican eatery in Costa Mesa’s SoCo Collection posted to social media on Thursday that it would close while it awaited a staff member’s COVID-19 test results; it updated the post to say that it is “COVID-19 free and safe” and would resume takeout service on Wednesday.

Taco Maria has closed before during the pandemic, choosing in late March to temporarily cease all operations as a health precaution.

In addition to earning a Michelin star in 2019 — Hana re, also in Costa Mesa, was the only other Orange County restaurant to get on the exclusive list last year — Taco Maria came in third on the Los Angeles Times’ 101 Best Restaurants list for 2019 and was named that publication’s top restaurant in 2018.

Restaurants around Orange County have gone off and back online in recent weeks as workers come down with suspected and confirmed cases of COVID-19.

In another recent case, Farmhouse at Roger’s Gardens in Newport Beach closed for two days last week after a member of the kitchen staff tested positive for the virus, according to a post to the restaurant’s Instagram. The “farm-to-fork” restaurant, which has since reopened for lunchtime patio dining and resumed takeout-only for dinner, deep-cleaned and had four additional employees go into quarantine and get tested. It plans to resume dine-in dinner service next week.

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