At AXO, chef Jose Lorenzo fuses Mexican and Asian flavors

Camden-born Jose Lorenzo worked his way up from dishwasher at Caffe Aldo Lamberti’s to cooking and then managing at the Lamberti family’s various restaurants in South Jersey and Center City Philadelphia.

Only months after he bought his first house, the pandemic hit and his hours were cut. To pay the bills, he started selling birria tacos out of his garage in Lindenwold. “Before I knew it, I started seeing people coming from New York and Maryland,” he said. “At the time, my competition was not doing birria tacos.”

Someone at Clementon Park heard about it, and last year, Lorenzo opened three taco stands at the amusement park. Last month, he added a brick-and-mortar BYOB restaurant called AXO in Lindenwold, just a few blocks from his house. It’s full service, and does a lot of takeout from a counter.

He thought that the food needed to be different at AXO, which is also his nickname. “Everybody’s doing birria now,” he said.

Lorenzo, 32, whose family is from Puebla, decided to fuse Mexican, Korean, and Japanese ingredients at AXO. So although everyone might be offering birria, not everyone is serving birria egg rolls, Korean al pastor tacos (the pork gets a blast of gochugaru), and bowls of birria ramen.

You’ve had butter boards, snack boards, and charcuterie boards? Lorenzo had branded boards made to serve the tacos and certain dishes, such as ceviche.

It’s BYOB and cash only, and watch the calendar: AXO is closed Monday and Wednesday to accommodate Lorenzo’s schedule at the amusement park.