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Falls Church’s La Tingeria will step into the television spotlight Monday, May 11, when WETA’s regional Emmy-winning series “Signature Dish” features the restaurant and its celebrated Tostada Tinga Chicken.

The half-hour episode airs at 9 p.m. as part of the show’s fourth season. Chef David Peña, founder and owner of La Tingeria at 626 S. Washington St., will prepare the dish for host Seth Tillman and explain the family recipe behind it.

Called “Taqueria Time,” Season 4’s seventh episode visits three taco destinations across the region: La Tingeria in Falls Church, Taqueria Xochi in Washington’s Navy Yard and Ixtapalapa in Gaithersburg.

La Tingeria specializes in Mexican antojitos and street food with an entirely halal menu. The restaurant appeared on Washingtonian’s “100 Very Best Restaurants” list in 2023 and 2024 and was named one of The Washington Post’s 10 best casual restaurants in 2022.

One dish, one larger story

“Signature Dish” uses a restaurant’s defining plate as an entry point into the people, neighborhoods and cultures behind the food. Tillman said the format differs from shows in which a host samples a sprawling selection of menu items.

Instead, each segment stays centered on one dish and builds the restaurant’s story around it.

Tillman helped shape nearly every element of the series with Miguel Monteverde, WETA’s head of local programming. He led development of its pacing, appearance, graphics and overall style. One signature feature he did not originate was the closing-credits scene in which crew members eat the remaining food—an idea from his boss that has become a viewer favorite.

The production travels with a relatively small team: Tillman, an associate producer and typically four or five crew members.

Although “Signature Dish” was Tillman’s first regular job in front of a camera, he arrived with years of production experience. A Washington-area native, he spent much of his 20s working in government and politics before deciding that field was not his passion.

An interest in video production led him to change careers, beginning as a production assistant and eventually joining WETA as a producer in 2016. He initially worked on historical documentaries about the Washington region.

In 2019, WETA began shifting its local programming toward recurring series built around familiar subjects such as food, real estate and lifestyle, while retaining a public-television focus on local storytelling. Tillman was assigned to produce and host a program about area restaurants.

He had previously made two half-hour installments of a restaurant program called “Neighborhood Eats,” but “Signature Dish” was intended from the beginning as an ongoing series. More than 100 restaurant visits later, the show is in its fourth season.

Tillman said his lifelong connection to the region informs his approach. He was born at Georgetown University Hospital, spent much of his childhood in nearby Chevy Chase and returned to Washington after college.

Why La Tingeria made the cut

Tillman described restaurant selection as “more art than science.” The team considers online reviews, previous coverage from food writers, personal recommendations, word of mouth and suggestions from viewers. At times, he visits restaurants quietly before deciding whether to include them.

The program generally looks for one of two things: a chef putting an unmistakably original spin on a dish, or someone executing a traditional preparation with exceptional consistency.

La Tingeria falls into the second category.

Peña grew up in the United States in a Mexican family and worked in construction before entering the restaurant business. He later joined Rustico in Arlington and rose to sous chef, making a career change that Tillman saw as similar to his own move away from government and politics.

During staff meals at Rustico, Peña frequently prepared his family’s chicken tinga recipe, often served on crisp, fried tortillas. The dish became so popular among his coworkers that one suggested he open a business called La Tingeria—an invented name built around the Spanish convention of adding “-ería” to describe a place selling a particular product.

Peña began with a food truck. He later converted the business to an all-halal menu, opening it to diners who might otherwise avoid a taqueria serving pork or alcohol.

During the pandemic, he moved into the South Washington Street location in Falls Church. The business has since expanded its reach with a presence at Port City Brewing Company in Alexandria and a truck that appears near Audi Field for some games.

Tillman said La Tingeria’s strength comes from performing a seemingly simple preparation at a consistently high level. He called its tostada de tinga among the best versions available in the Washington area.

Building a regional food series

The series has won three regional Emmy Awards from the National Capital Chesapeake Bay Chapter of the National Academy of Television Arts and Sciences—one for writing and two for producing. Tillman also received a nomination last year for his writing on the program.

He attributes the show’s reception partly to its local focus. Unlike national food programs that may send viewers to distant cities, “Signature Dish” profiles restaurants that people across Washington, Maryland and Virginia can realistically visit.

Tillman emphasized that the program is not a restaurant advertising service or a traditional food-criticism show. Its goal is to identify strong food and compelling stories while celebrating local restaurants and small businesses.

The program also deliberately mixes locations, cuisines and prices. Producers try to avoid placing three similar dishes or three restaurants from the same jurisdiction in one episode. An installment may cross Washington, Maryland and Virginia while offering choices for diners with different budgets and tastes.

That diversity extends beyond geography and price. The show seeks racial, ethnic and gender representation while highlighting the many cultural traditions found across the region.

Tillman pointed to Northern Virginia as an especially rich example. Migration helped establish Korean restaurants in Annandale, Vietnamese businesses around the Eden Center and earlier in Clarendon, and other culinary communities throughout the suburbs. He sees similar patterns in the concentration of Chinese restaurants around Rockville.

Food, he said, gives chefs a way to tell both personal and cultural stories.

An adventurous host—and a smoother production

Tillman’s willingness to try unfamiliar dishes has also shaped the series. In the same episode featuring La Tingeria, he visits a Gaithersburg taqueria for pancita, a regional form of menudo made with cow stomach and cow feet. Tillman said he loved it and would consider returning for another bowl.

He has not encountered a dish he refused to try and has no food allergies. He also enjoys cooking at home, although the show’s production schedule leaves him less time for the ambitious meals he made more often in his 20s.

After filming more than 120 restaurants, Tillman said the crew now operates like a well-oiled machine. That was not always the case. During the first season, delays sometimes left food sitting for so long that a bowl of soup meant to be tasted piping hot was nearly ice cold by the time cameras captured his first bite.

Those early problems have largely disappeared as the team refined its process. The central idea, however, remains unchanged: use a memorable plate of food to introduce viewers to the people and communities that created it.