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Mika Leon CAJA CALIENTE
Monica “Mika” Leon comes from a family of ever-busy restaurant professionals—her grandfather was a restaurateur in Spain, and her mother owned a catering company. Leon always gravitated toward food and restaurants, but her mom warned against the long hours and stress. Leon went on to study business and PR at the University of Florida but couldn’t keep away from hospitality. In 2011, she started a food blog, Mikabites, and converted her mom’s garage into a wholesale bakery. (Local supermarkets couldn’t get enough of her empanadas.) She bought a food truck in 2016 and named the new enterprise Caja Caliente. Although Leon’s mother thought she was nuts, she immediately jumped in to help make the truck a hit. They began with Cuban pork tacos and some juices in Wynwood, and the truck’s success led to a brick-and-mortar in Coral Gables in 2019. Leon has since been named an Eater Young Gun semifinalist and competed on Food Network’s Beat 34
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Bobby Flay and Guy’s Grocery Games. She’s now working on a line of retail cooking products. At only 30, she’s given Miami a strong appetite for her family recipes, which her mother, uncles, and cousins still prepare together in the Caja Caliente kitchen. mikabites / cajacaliente Favorite kitchen tool: My stand-up mixer. I’m an avid baker and find it really relaxes me, especially in our very stressful industry. Tool you wish you had: I have way too many tools to the point where my guest room is now a storage of cooking equipment, but I don’t have a pizza oven, which I really, really want! Favorite cookbook: My family cookbook. The handwritten messages are the best. Most important kitchen rule: Prep. Always prep and clean as you go. What you eat on your nights off: I cook at home with my boyfriend, and we love baking and making homemade pasta or barbecue. Amazing comfort food and PJ's! Nothing better!
El Lechón If there’s a secret to Caja Caliente’s success, it would have to be the family recipe for lechón. The pork shoulder filled the first taco that Mika Leon served out of her food truck, and the menu now features it in seven different ways. Her grandfather made a name for his Cuban restaurants in Spain with the crispy, sweet meat, and Leon has done the same. The recipe is top secret, but we can share that Leon marinates it overnight to give it strong flavors of garlic, sour orange, and oregano. Depending on the size, it’s baked for four to six hours, deboned, shredded, and weighed into equal portions for consistency, a hallmark of Caja Caliente. “[My grandfather] made it every Christmas Eve,” Leon says. “I ate it on my birthday. I spruced up the traditional tamal that we grew up eating.”
