The Reported Table: Luna Mexican Kitchen, the Bib Gourmand favorite on The Alameda, marks Día de los Muertos with a sold-out dinner

Top image: The Alameda in San Jose, the corridor where Luna Mexican Kitchen opened its first restaurant. Photo: Cristiano Tomás / CC BY-SA 4.0 via Wikimedia Commons

By Celeste Marchetti-Okoro, Food & Dining Reporter

Tonight, on the Day of the Dead, Luna Mexican Kitchen’s Campbell restaurant is hosting a $195-per-guest dinner. According to the event page, it includes a welcome cocktail reception at 5:30 p.m. and, at 6, a four-course dinner “inspired by heritage and remembrance,” paired with a tequila and mezcal tasting. Gratuity is included and the event is 21 and over. It is sold out.

That a $195 Mexican dinner sold out in the South Bay says something about how far Luna has come since it opened on The Alameda, and about where the region’s Mexican cooking now sits. The Chronicle’s guide to Día de los Muertos food events has other options for diners who missed it.

What the menu says

The menu posted on Luna’s website (checked Nov. 2) is built around sourcing it names on the page. Tortillas are “house-made nixtamal organic corn.” Beans come from Rancho Gordo, the Napa heirloom-bean company. Steak and carnitas come from Niman Ranch, and the chicken is Mary’s free-range. The website does not show prices next to items, so the Chronicle is not publishing any.

Dishes on the posted menu include:

Mole Poblano Enchiladas: Mary’s chicken under “a house-made mole of dried chilies, chocolate, cinnamon, nuts, seasonings, aromatics, sesame seeds.”
Tacos Dorados de Papa: three crisp taquitos of pureed potato with tomatillo salsa.
Baja Fish Tacos: battered rock cod with chipotle aioli, cabbage slaw and serrano-lime crema.
Camote: charred sweet potato with chipotle aioli.
Parrilladas: mixed grills served with organic arroz verde, Rancho Gordo beans and nixtamal tortillas.
At breakfast, Horchata French Toast with piloncillo syrup and Chilaquiles made with handmade tortilla chips.

The bar list leads with the house “LUNArita,” made with 100% agave tequila.

The Pruneyard shopping center in Campbell, home to Luna’s second location, in February 2026. Photo: Jesse Kornblum / CC BY-SA 4.0 via Wikimedia Commons

Who’s behind it

Luna is owned by Jo Lerma-Lopez and her husband, John Lopez. Before restaurants they ran a record label and a retail store in San Jose, according to a July profile in the Los Altos Town Crier. The Town Crier reported that the couple opened the first Luna on The Alameda in June 2017. The name stands for “Local, Unrefined, Natural, Authentic.”

Lerma-Lopez has said her interest in food began with her father’s health. “I started to dive into food and how it could be used as medicine to heal him,” she told San José Spotlight in 2023. She described the chips to the outlet this way: “We use the ancient process of nixtamalization, taking non-GMO corn and soaking overnight in an alkaline solution… then grinding it with stone.” She told Spotlight the kitchen has no can and no microwave.

The second restaurant opened in 2019 at the Pruneyard, 1875 S. Bascom Ave. in Campbell, in the former El Burro space, SanJose.com reported at the time. A third was announced at 145 First St. in downtown Los Altos. The Town Crier reported in July that it was expected to open in early September after more than two years of construction delays. As of Nov. 2, the Chronicle could not confirm whether it has opened; Luna’s location pages list San Jose and Campbell. In April, the Silicon Valley Business Journal reported that the company expected to employ up to 290 workers once its third location opened.

What the critics have said

Michelin has named Luna a Bib Gourmand pick, the guide’s designation for good cooking at moderate prices. It appears on OpenTable’s list of 2026 California Bib Gourmand restaurants and on Michelin’s own page. Luna’s website quotes the guide: “Love for food is clear in every morsel that emerges from this kitchen.” SanJose.com noted in 2019 that the restaurant had already won two consecutive Bib Gourmand awards.

The Infatuation’s Ren Vardi, in a March 2026 review, called the San Jose restaurant “a casual, come-as-you-are spot that’s great for families.” Vardi singled out the Baja fish tacos, the camote as “another must-order,” the salsa verde and the mango habanero margarita. San José Spotlight’s 2023 profile focused on the house-made chips and the Enchiladas Suizas.

A Día de los Muertos ofrenda at a public altar display. This National Park Service photo was taken at Mission Marquee Plaza in San Antonio, Texas. Photo: NPS Photo (public domain) via Wikimedia Commons

The record

Santa Clara County’s Department of Environmental Health posts restaurant inspections on its DineOut portal. The portal could not be reached from the Chronicle’s systems before publication, so we are not characterizing Luna’s inspection history here. Readers can look up both locations on the portal by name.

The long view

Luna’s arc, from a single storefront on The Alameda to a Pruneyard dining room to a planned third restaurant, follows the path that the South Bay’s most-cited mid-priced restaurants have taken. Michelin recognition at the Bib level has become a growth credential, much as it has for Adega at the starred level. It also points to rising costs. Sourcing named farms and ranches, making masa from scratch and staffing three kitchens all cost more in a region with some of the country’s highest commercial rents and wages. Tonight’s sold-out $195 dinner shows there are diners willing to pay for that model, at least on a holiday.

*The Reported Table is built from published menus, public records and other critics’ published reviews. The Chronicle does not award stars and our reporters do not claim tastings.*

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