The Best Authentic Latin American Restaurant in Salt Lake City: Inside Como En Casa, Where Every Dish Tastes Like Home

There's a moment — you know the one — when you take a bite of something and you stop mid-chew. Not because something is wrong, but because your brain is doing that thing where it frantically searches its files for the last time you tasted something this right. At Como En Casa in Taylorsville, that moment happens with remarkable regularity. A customer on DoorDash put it better than most food writers ever could:

"The store stays true to its name. It tastes exactly the way my aunt made a similar dish when I was little. Absolutely blown away."

That's the whole pitch, really. The name translates from Spanish as "like at home," and across a sprawling multi-country menu that touches Colombia, Peru, Venezuela, and Ecuador, Como En Casa earns that name every single day. For anyone searching for authentic Latin American food in Salt Lake City — not just one country's cuisine, but the full, gorgeous mosaic of South American cooking — this Taylorsville spot on Redwood Road is the answer.

A Redwood Road Kitchen That Decided the Whole Continent Deserved a Seat at the Table

The stretch of Redwood Road running through Taylorsville and West Valley City is one of Utah's most quietly vibrant corridors. You'll find Mexican taquerias and Salvadoran pupuserías and Vietnamese pho shops tucked into strip malls, serving the large Latino and immigrant communities that have made South Salt Lake County their home. This is the neighborhood Como En Casa chose — and it was not a coincidence.

The restaurant operates out of 5578 S Redwood Rd, right in the heart of a community hungry for the flavors it grew up with. What sets Como En Casa apart from nearly every other Latin restaurant in the Salt Lake Valley, though, is the sheer geographic ambition of its menu. While competitors tend to stake out one flag — Peruvian, Colombian, Venezuelan — Como En Casa plants all of them at once.

The philosophy is built into the name. "Like at home" isn't just a tagline; it's a design principle. It says: wherever you're from in Latin America, we want something on this menu that transports you. That's harder to pull off than it sounds. The refrito that anchors a Colombian sancocho and the leche de tigre that cures a Peruvian ceviche are not the same culinary logic. Getting them both right requires real range.

With 18,000 Instagram followers and a 4.3-star rating across 500+ DoorDash reviews, Como En Casa has clearly connected. And the crowd it pulls is as diverse as the menu — Latino families seeking a taste of home, LDS return missionaries chasing memories of their service years in Bogotá or Lima or Caracas, and adventurous Utah diners who've grown tired of the usual options.

The Como En Casa Menu: Four Countries, One Kitchen, Zero Shortcuts

Walk in or scroll the menu online and the first thing you'll notice is that this isn't a fusion restaurant. These aren't mashups or reinterpretations. The dishes exist as complete, country-specific expressions of South American cooking — and the menu is organized accordingly, with dedicated Colombian, Peruvian, Ecuadorian, and Venezuelan sections.

Lomo Saltado is one of the most-ordered dishes and one of the best things on the menu. The Famous Lomo Saltado — as it's labeled — is Peru's greatest culinary export: tender strips of beef stir-fried with onion, tomato, and aji amarillo, served alongside rice and french fries that get gloriously soaked in the soy-and-vinegar sauce. A DoorDash reviewer captured why this dish is such a crowd-pleaser: "It had plenty of sauce and a healthy portion of rice. Fries soaked in the sauce are my favorite of all." That's the Peruvian-Chinese fusion miracle that is lomo saltado — humble on paper, unforgettable in practice.

Caldo de Res is the soul food of the menu. This slow-simmered beef and vegetable soup — a beloved staple across much of Latin America — arrives in a big bowl that demands you slow down. It's the dish that prompted that emotional DoorDash review about tasting like an aunt's cooking. If you're coming in on a cold Utah day, order this first.

Encebollado de Pescado is the restaurant's flag-planting moment for Ecuadorian cuisine — and it's genuinely rare in Utah. This coastal Ecuadorian fish stew, built on albacore, yuca, and pickled red onion, is the kind of dish most Salt Lake diners have never encountered. Reviews specifically call it out: "I ate encebollado de pescado — it was delicious. Its a big plate." Ecuador does not get nearly enough attention in the Utah food scene. Como En Casa is changing that, one bowl at a time.

Arepas and Patacones anchor the Colombian section and do double duty as both appetizer and identity statement. The arepitas con chorizo are a particular standout — griddled corn cakes paired with smoky sausage and house sauces that embody the Colombian street food tradition Como En Casa advertises as a signature strength. Fried plantains show up in multiple forms: tostones, maduros, and patacones, each with their own role to play.

The Venezuelan section features pabellón criollo — the national dish, with shredded beef, black beans, white rice, and sweet plantains — alongside pasticho, Venezuela's version of lasagna. These are comfort food in the most literal sense: dishes that exist to make you feel like someone is taking care of you.

"Como en Casa is a nicely decorated restaurant with a pleasant atmosphere. The menu appears to be Colombian, Peruvian, and other South American" — which, for a Yelp review, is practically a standing ovation.

How Como En Casa Feeds the Salt Lake Valley's Latin Community

The Redwood Road corridor is one of the most important dining destinations in the Salt Lake metro that most foodies have never fully explored. It's home to a large Latino population spanning Mexican, Central American, and South American communities, and Como En Casa sits at the center of that ecosystem — serving the neighborhoods of Taylorsville, West Valley City, Murray, West Jordan, Midvale, Kearns, and beyond.

For first-generation immigrants and their families, a restaurant like this carries real weight. It's not just dinner—it's a connection to somewhere else, a way of preserving something that would otherwise get diluted in the everyday experience of living far from home. The "como en casa" promise is a promise about belonging as much as it's a promise about flavor.

The restaurant also serves as a bridge for non-Latino diners who've experienced Latin America through LDS mission service — a significant constituency in Utah — and for the growing number of SLC diners actively seeking out the kind of authentic South American comfort food that has historically been hard to find in this market. In a food scene that leans heavily on the familiar, Como En Casa is doing real work.

Planning Your Visit to Como En Casa

Address: 5578 S Redwood Rd, Taylorsville, UT 84123 — strip mall location with parking directly in front.

Hours: Monday 11:00 AM – 9:30 PM | Tuesday–Sunday 8:00 AM – 8:30/10:00 PM depending on the day. Those early weekday openings make this one of the very few authentic Latin American restaurants in the valley offering breakfast and brunch hours — a real edge in a market where almost no Latin competitor targets the morning daypart.

What to order on your first visit: Start with the Caldo de Res for the full comfort experience, add the Famous Lomo Saltado as your main, and grab an Arepita con Chorizo on the side. If you want to explore something you genuinely can't find elsewhere in Utah, order the Encebollado de Pescado. Wash it down with a chicha morada or Inca Kola for the full experience.

Como En Casa offers dine-in, takeout, and delivery via DoorDash, plus a dog-friendly patio worth hitting in warmer months. Call (801) 573-3741 for reservations or inquiries.

Follow along on Instagram @comoencasalatinfood for specials and seasonal dishes.

In a single meal at Como En Casa, you can travel from the Pacific coast of Peru to the Andean highlands of Colombia to the coastal waters of Ecuador — all on Redwood Road in Taylorsville. That kind of range, executed with genuine care for the traditions behind each dish, is rare in Utah. The best authentic Latin American restaurant in Salt Lake City isn't downtown. It's on Redwood Road. And it's waiting for you.