LOS ANGELES — Amid alien contact, thrilling chase sequences and cathartic emotional beats, "Nope" considers a range of ideological concepts — legacy, race, exploitation and the taming of nature among them. But writer-director Jordan Peele's summer blockbuster also poses a more fundamental question: What makes the perfect fish sandwich?
Eagle-eyed viewers might recognize Peele's fictional fast-food chain, Copperpot's Cove — where O.J. Haywood (Daniel Kaluuya), sister Em (Keke Palmer) and their Fry's tech-support tag-along Angel Torres (Brandon Perea) seek comfort in a fried fish sandwich after a narrow escape — from the blue-and-yellow food packaging that appears on the Wilson family's dining table in Peele's previous film, "Us."
Peele, in "Nope's" press notes, declined to confirm that the two films exist in the same universe. ("Those are speculations I am happy to let people make," he said.) What he did disclose was where those fictionalized Long John Silver's fish sandwiches come from. To build the screen-perfect bite, Peele tapped chef Gilberto Cetina of Holbox, a favorite restaurant of Peele's and a little sliver of the Yucatan Peninsula that's hidden inside L.A. food hall and cultural space Mercado La Paloma.
