These are the 101 best tacos in Los Angeles
Los Angeles is a city of tacos. They’re how we commune with each other — probably over our favorite al pastor tacos, eating on the sidewalk as traffic whizzes by. Maybe we trek up the hill with them at sunset to find a grassy spot and look at the palm trees and downtown skyline. We drive across town to our favorite birria truck and sit at folding tables under a tent in a parking lot, sharing plates of roasted chivo with warm tortillas.
Get to know Los Angeles through the tacos that bring it to life. From restaurants to trucks to carts and more, here’s 101 of the city’s best.
The L.A. Times Food team canvassed L.A. to eat hundreds of tacos and find the 101 best in our greater metropolitan area — in the tradition of the 101 Best Restaurants that The Times has published every year for a decade. Named after the 101 Freeway, it connects us to our neighborhoods and the way we eat and live.
Use this guide to find the greatest of nearly every kind of taco in the city, reflecting history, regional cooking styles and some adaptations that have become part of L.A. food culture, from street stands to trucks to restaurants, whether it’s asada or al vapor, barbacoa or birria, carnitas or costilla or cachete.
Here are the 101 best tacos in Los Angeles. We’ve listed them geographically, in areas from north to south.
Is your favorite taco on the list? Is it not? Do you have taco questions? Tell us by dropping a line in the comments; at a live Q&A on Thursday at 11 a.m., this is where we’ll be talking all things tacos.
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(Bill Addison / Los Angeles Times)
Asada queso taco at Tacos El Llano
Palmdale Carne Asada Puesto $
Find Tacos El Llano in Palmdale under tents on an unpaved stretch at East Avenue R and 30th Street East. You’ll see the 7-Eleven nearby, and likely rows of parked cars and a swift-moving line of people. The menu centers on classic taco meats: asada, al pastor (graced with a nick of pineapple from atop the trompo), tripa, pollo, buche, lengua, cabeza and chorizo. Each one hits its mark. The asada stood out, perhaps because it was pulled directly from a grill billowing with smoke, chopped and piled on top of a just-cooked tortilla I’d asked to be lined with cheese. I covered my plate with onions, cilantro, lime juice and salsa verde from a stop at the DIY condiment table, stood in the open air under a hot sun, breathed in the wafting scents of sizzling meat and savored this specific moment of taco bliss.
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Al pastor queso taco at Angel's Tijuana Tacos
Tujunga Al Pastor Puesto $
If you see a line forming down the block for a towering, bright red trompo and the team manning the puestos stacked end-to-end looks more like a well-oiled assembly line than a casual pop-up, there’s a good chance you’ve stumbled upon one of more than a dozen locations for my favorite al pastor. As the name implies, Angel’s Tijuana Tacos specializes in T.J.-style grilled and sheared meats topped with avocado salsa, cilantro and onions. While there’s cabeza, asada, chorizo and pollo, the al pastor — sliced thin with a flourish and a garnish of pineapple from the top of the trompo — is the signature item.
Angel’s manages to perfectly crisp the marinated pork almost to the point of singed, the flames licking the side of the eye-catching meat obelisk. The result is layers of spice-rubbed pork oscillating between fattiness and crunchiness, and when paired with cheese, that gooey addition pushes the al pastor toward decadent. The handmade corn tortillas get smashed almost paper-thin on a wooden press, then thrown on the comal until they bubble. Don’t let that thinness deceive you; somehow, these fresh tortillas always manage to withstand the onslaught of meat, salsa and as many grilled onions as you can heap on with tongs. Look for Angel’s across L.A. and the Inland Empire, including in Tujunga, Long Beach, Echo Park, Van Nuys, Eagle Rock, Chino and Woodland Hills.
Angel’s manages to perfectly crisp the marinated pork almost to the point of singed, the flames licking the side of the eye-catching meat obelisk. The result is layers of spice-rubbed pork oscillating between fattiness and crunchiness, and when paired with cheese, that gooey addition pushes the al pastor toward decadent. The handmade corn tortillas get smashed almost paper-thin on a wooden press, then thrown on the comal until they bubble. Don’t let that thinness deceive you; somehow, these fresh tortillas always manage to withstand the onslaught of meat, salsa and as many grilled onions as you can heap on with tongs. Look for Angel’s across L.A. and the Inland Empire, including in Tujunga, Long Beach, Echo Park, Van Nuys, Eagle Rock, Chino and Woodland Hills.
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(Andrea D’Agosto / For The Times)
Lamb barbacoa taco at Barbacoa Ramirez
Arleta Lamb Puesto $
Lamb, when slow-roasted in a pit in the ground, sparks an animalistic instinct in the carnivore’s soul. One bite of glistening meat wrapped in earthy corn tortilla evokes the taste of a morning at the rancho in the highlands of Mexico. This experience is plentiful with Barbacoa Ramirez, set up under a tarp on weekend mornings near the Arleta DMV. Look for the taqueros wearing shirts reflecting the Ramirez family’s roots to the town of Atotonilco El Grande, Hidalgo. These tacos, with freshly hand-made tortillas, are a prize of craftsmanship and possibly the finest barbacoa to be found in Southern California. Why? It’s in the unyielding devotion of Gonzalo Ramirez, a fourth-generation master in the Hidalgo style who raises and butchers his own lambs in the Central Valley, feeding them only alfalfa and cracked corn. Enjoy the barbacoa also as a hearty consomé, as pancita, or ask for a taco of moronga, lamb blood sausage unlike any I’ve ever tasted, seasoned with loads of oregano, chiles and onion by an Hidalguense sheep farmer in L.A. An unexpected masterpiece.
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"Carne" guisada taco at El Cocinero
Van Nuys Vegan Dine In $
There is no shortage of vegetarian tacos in Los Angeles. Many celebrate seasonal vegetables in glorious ways, such as traditional calabacitas, nopales and greens such as quintoniles. California farmers market spins include roasted eggplant, battered and fried cauliflower, sautéed broccolini and sweet potato with cashew cheese. But if a tastes-like-meat craving for street tacos hits, then there is one place to go. And that’s Alex Vargas’ El Cocinero in a Van Nuys strip mall (conveniently located a few doors down from a new boba shop) on Sepulveda Boulevard.
Vargas makes “carne asada” and “al pastor” with soy-based meat alternatives that are pretty much ringers for the pork and beef versions fresh from the grill or trompo (complete with bits of juicy pineapple). A lot of regulars are also fans of his fried chicharrón soy curls and the crispy “quesabirria” tacos made with jackfruit and served with vegetarian consomé. A recent addition to the El Cocinero menu is carne guisada: smoky sautéed soy-based meat that combines satisfying and savory beefy-ness with sweet, charred-edge onions and peppers.
Vargas makes “carne asada” and “al pastor” with soy-based meat alternatives that are pretty much ringers for the pork and beef versions fresh from the grill or trompo (complete with bits of juicy pineapple). A lot of regulars are also fans of his fried chicharrón soy curls and the crispy “quesabirria” tacos made with jackfruit and served with vegetarian consomé. A recent addition to the El Cocinero menu is carne guisada: smoky sautéed soy-based meat that combines satisfying and savory beefy-ness with sweet, charred-edge onions and peppers.
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(Bill Addison / Los Angeles Times)
Cabeza vampiro at Tacos El Vampiro
Sylmar Cabeza Dine In $
Among the many theories on the murky origins of “vampiro” to describe a tortilla griddled to a wavy crispness before its final taco form, I’ll always (out of personal delight) cling to the idea that the shape recalls Dracula in bat form. It’s unlikely, though, that any flying mammal could lift off under the generous fillings heaped on the namesake creation at Tacos El Vampiro. The menu at this small, cheerful taqueria nestled in a Sylmar strip mall reads concise: seven canonical meat options for tacos, quesadillas, burritos and mulitas. The cabeza, in particular, has a textbook melting quality that nicely juxtaposes the vampiro’s crunch, and its flavor rings through melted cheese, onion, cilantro, red or green salsa and rivulets of guacamole. Vampiros are widespread throughout L.A. these days; this is the one to seek out in the San Fernando Valley.
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Carne asada taco at Taqueria Mi Ranchito
Sylmar Carne Asada Food Truck $
Taqueria Mi Ranchito parks its truck on a stretch of Foothill Boulevard in Sylmar sprinkled with a dozen other trucks and stands. What sets it apart from the rest is the carne asada taco, kissed so thoroughly by the grill that it perfumes both the meat and the handmade corn tortilla underneath. The beef is as tender as a steakhouse rib-eye, well seasoned and plentiful. After I’ve finished plucking off the stray pieces that escape the taco, I like to dress it with grilled onions and both the truck’s orange and green sauces. The green is reminiscent of a cool, creamy cilantro dressing, while the orange is all fire. The raw, sharp chile flavor will leave your lips swollen and tingling.
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Lengua taco at Arturo’s Taco Truck
Pasadena Lengua Food Truck $
The lengua taco is the first and only one I’ve ever ordered at this taco truck in Pasadena. It’s not that I’m opposed to trying new things. Or that I’m a particularly finicky eater. The allure of the lengua is so great, the supple meatiness of the hunks of stewed tongue so exact, that I crave it and it alone, every time I visit. The tortillas are of the thin, palm-size variety, with two nestled under the meat. To fully appreciate the lengua, I forgo the salsa for a sprinkle of fresh cilantro and diced white onion. There are few things more enjoyable than a paper plate of lengua tacos eaten while standing in the parking lot with friends.
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Migajas taco at Carnitas El Momo
Monterey Park Carnitas Dine In $
The Acosta family makes its carnitas in large copper cazos, cooking the buche, cueritos and bone-in pork butts in seasoned lard. Romulo “Momo” Acosta learned how to make carnitas from his father in Salamanca, Guanajuato. Fans followed his mobile operation around Los Angeles for more than a decade. Now there’s also a counter-service restaurant in Monterey Park. They make an “aporkalypse” taco with all the cuts of meat, but the burnt ends may be the most intense, purest celebration of pork. The migajas are their own sort of aporkalypse, consisting of the pieces that collect at the bottom of the pot. Caramelized bits mix with meat that goes slack and wobbly, succumbing to all the fat. It’s slick and sticky in the tortilla with a wallop of glorious pork flavor. I like to add slivers of pickled onion and some fresh cilantro. Some people like to drizzle on the juice from one of the provided pickled peppers. You do you.
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(Oscar Mendoza / For The Times)
Birria queso taco at Saucy Chick Goat Mafia
East Pasadena Goat birria Dine In $
Juan Garcia and his family have origins in Jalisco, the birthplace of birria. There, making the long-simmered dish with goat is all but law. Garcia interprets a recipe tracing back to his great-great-grandfather: It involves steaming the meat first before it melds over low heat with spices that include dried and smoked chiles, ginger, chocolate, cinnamon, garlic, black pepper and often, juice from the oranges of one of his uncle’s trees. It stands out as extraordinary even in a town rife with birria. As a taco, the chopped mix of ropy-slick textures bonds to a corn tortilla via melted Monterey Jack. The presence of cheese manages to amplify the birria’s smokier, brighter tones, so by all means indulge. Find Garcia’s masterwork in two locations: on Sundays as a vendor at Smorgasburg L.A., and Tuesday through Saturday at the Pasadena restaurant that serves both the specialties of Goat Mafia and the Indian-Mexican mashups of fellow Smorgasburg regulars Saucy Chick Rotisserie.
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Suadero taco at King Taco
Pasadena Suadero Dine In $
According to Times columnist Gustavo Arellano, you can credit King Taco founder Raul Martinez Sr. as the inventor of the modern taco truck, one of the great contributions that L.A. has made to world civilization. While I wasn’t around for the original East L.A. truck, the Pasadena restaurant was a mainstay during my formative high school years. It’s a neighborhood institution, where construction workers, hospital staff, students, lawyers and cooks from the restaurant down the street crowd the entrance in line. The suadero is the taco I order each time. I’m addicted to the char on the beef, the way it’s rough chopped so that some bits are crisp and others grisly, amplifying the layers. I’m equally transfixed by the way the tortillas, barely large enough to contain the meat, soak up the juices. Team green salsa for life. The tart tang is too good to ever quit.
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(Betty Hallock / Los Angeles Times)
Fried fish taco at Playa Del Carmen
Pasadena Fish Dine In $
The Mexican seafood options in Pasadena are scant, so on a recent weekend afternoon, Playa Del Carmen is filled with diners ordering bounteous goblets of shrimp cocteles, platters of whole grilled fish and ceviche tostadas. But I’m here for the fish tacos, expertly fried by owner Mario Velasquez — who is a one-man operation with a menu of nearly 75 dishes last I counted. I place my order with him at the cash register, and then he disappears into the kitchen to grill, fry and plate the orders at hand.
“Seafood is easy to cook,” he says, “I just have to know the timing. But it’s a lot of work, it’s 24/7. I buy seafood every day, it has to be fresh. Plus I don’t have a lot of storage space anyway.” He tells me he seasons his tempura batter with paprika and cumin among other spices and the fish fillets are battered and fried to order. “The temperature has to be right to make it really good,” he says. “If it’s too high the fish won’t cook, too low and it’s not going to be crispy.” His fish comes out of the fryer hot and crispy and light and airy — simultaneously puffy and crackly-crunchy — piled with shredded cabbage and topped with crema and pico de gallo that’s extra lime-y.
“Seafood is easy to cook,” he says, “I just have to know the timing. But it’s a lot of work, it’s 24/7. I buy seafood every day, it has to be fresh. Plus I don’t have a lot of storage space anyway.” He tells me he seasons his tempura batter with paprika and cumin among other spices and the fish fillets are battered and fried to order. “The temperature has to be right to make it really good,” he says. “If it’s too high the fish won’t cook, too low and it’s not going to be crispy.” His fish comes out of the fryer hot and crispy and light and airy — simultaneously puffy and crackly-crunchy — piled with shredded cabbage and topped with crema and pico de gallo that’s extra lime-y.
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(Jenn Harris / Los Angeles Times)
World-famous shrimp taco at Taco Nazo
South El Monte Shrimp Dine In $
It may be a hot take, but I prefer the shrimp tacos at Taco Nazo to the fried fish. I can’t confirm that the shrimp taco is actually world-famous. The restaurant’s fish taco boasts the same claim in its name. But I can tell you that the fried shrimp taco is the finest I’ve had outside of Ensenada. The shrimp are plump and jumbo in size, encased in a fried batter that’s light, crisp and fractures on contact. I’d happily eat a bowl of the shrimp on its own. They pile enough shrimp on the corn tortillas to create a mound, then dress it with shredded cabbage, chopped onion, tomato and cilantro. Each taco gets a generous squirt of the signature sauce, a thick crema with herbs and seasonings that reminds me of a tangy ranch dressing. If you get through this blurb and you think you’re still partial to the fish, order both.
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Pork costilla taco at Avenue 26 Tacos
Eagle Rock Pork Costilla Puesto $$
Despite the loss of its longtime home in Lincoln Heights, Avenue 26 Tacos is still thriving. Puebla-born founder Erasmo Reyes set up his stall on an empty street more than a decade ago; his operation became so successful that new vendors joined, and it became the bustling Avenue 26 Night Market, which the city shut down in 2021. These days his puestos can be found in Eagle Rock, Little Tokyo and, more recently, Hollywood, but Eagle Rock alone serves what could be Reyes’ best taco yet: pork costilla. Added to the menu in spring, it’s now his most popular taco. Large hunks of pork rib charred fresh on the grill fill the palm-sized tortillas, rubbed in a spice blend akin to the al pastor’s. The just-crisp exterior hides a succulent, fatty center, and it can all be pieced apart by hand to separate it from the cartilage or eaten all at once. Whichever way you enjoy it, load up on the bevy of salsas.
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Potato taco at El Atacor No. 1
Cypress Park Potato Dine In $
First there is the sound of the taco. The crisp shatter of a well-fried tortilla gets your attention. Then you break through to the taco dorado’s soft inner core, a fluffy mash of potatoes supercharged by its quick-fry bath in hot oil and cooled with crema and gently spiced taqueria guacamole slashed across the top plus a sprinkling of white cheese. This is the El Atacor Taqueria No. 1 potato taco, possibly the city’s best of its kind.
Of course, if you are a longtime Los Angeles taco aficionado you know that there was another El Atacor down the street — El Atacor No. 11 — that was even more famous for its potato tacos (not to mention its so-called porno burrito). I used to eat there with the late Jonathan Gold, whose description of No. 11’s potato taco helped him win his 2007 Pulitzer Prize for criticism. But in 2016, El Atacor No. 11 suddenly shut its doors. No one we talked with at El Atacor No. 1 has anything to say about El Atacor No. 11, and though there are other taquerias around Southern California with the El Atacor name, most seem to be independently operated — and not all of them serve potato tacos. Until the mystery is solved, we will stick with the potato tacos at No. 1, which in our most recent tastings around town for potato tacos emerged as our favorite.
Of course, if you are a longtime Los Angeles taco aficionado you know that there was another El Atacor down the street — El Atacor No. 11 — that was even more famous for its potato tacos (not to mention its so-called porno burrito). I used to eat there with the late Jonathan Gold, whose description of No. 11’s potato taco helped him win his 2007 Pulitzer Prize for criticism. But in 2016, El Atacor No. 11 suddenly shut its doors. No one we talked with at El Atacor No. 1 has anything to say about El Atacor No. 11, and though there are other taquerias around Southern California with the El Atacor name, most seem to be independently operated — and not all of them serve potato tacos. Until the mystery is solved, we will stick with the potato tacos at No. 1, which in our most recent tastings around town for potato tacos emerged as our favorite.
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(Mariah Tauger / Los Angeles Times)
Don’t Mess With Texas taco at HomeState
Highland Park Tex-Mex Dine In $
While L.A. is home to some of the best regional street tacos and Alta California cuisine, its Texas-style versions are few and far between. Enter HomeState, one of the city’s few bastions of breakfast tacos and a place where dietary restrictions, frozen palomas and community fundraising are always on the menu. Briana “Breezy” Valdez brought a bit of her Texas roots to L.A. in 2013 and has since expanded across L.A. and recently, into Oceanside. Corn tortillas are always available, but the flour tortillas shine here, especially as they feature butter instead of lard, and they’re freshly made using a Valdez family recipe. Multiple vegan and vegetarian options make this a destination for diners of all walks, though one of its meatiest tacos is perhaps its best: The Don’t Mess With Texas fills the tortilla to almost bursting with creamy refried charro beans, bacon, potatoes and shredded cheddar — a smoky, salty, satisfying taco for any time of the day. Keep an eye out for the rotating “band” tacos, where musicians and other celebrities design tacos whose proceeds go to such local organizations as the Watts Empowerment Center and No Us Without You.
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(Stephanie Breijo / Los Angeles Times)
Fish taco at Mariscos El Faro
Highland Park Fish Food Truck $
The blue-and-white food truck is a beacon. Mariscos El Faro is a long-running destination for Sinaloa-style seafood that can draw lines down the sidewalk and find customers gathering in the neighboring park. They huddle over to-go plates of tostadas piled with chilled lobina (sea bass) or empanadas served piping fresh and stuffed with chopped shrimp. While there are plenty of colorful signatures such as campechanas, botanas and aguachiles, the more humble fish tacos are just as enticing. Order them freshly beer-battered by hand, the crispy encasement well seasoned and light as air, or fried without batter, as owner-operator Ana Ibanez used to eat it as a child in Mazatlán. True to how her mother prepared it, Ibanez’s sea bass is coated in a citrusy marinade flecked with black pepper. Both versions are served in thin, soft but surprisingly sturdy corn tortillas along with cabbage, pico de gallo and crema, making for a bright, light, tangy taco.
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Pierna de pollo queso taco at Villa's Tacos
Highland Park Pollo Dine In $
“Tacos estilo Los Angeles” is Victor Villa’s motto for the pop-ups he began in 2018 and which grew into two freestanding locations: a small, always-busy taqueria in Highland Park and a newer, equally popular counter in Grand Central Market. Villa’s style of taco embodies the L.A. dreamer and doer. His blue-corn queso taco — maximal in every way with layers of griddled cheese, frijoles, cotija, onion, squiggled-on crema and dolloped guacamole — takes two hands to comfortably wield. It’s a construction built on charisma. One has no choice but to be pulled in. There are no wrong turns among fillings: fragrant chopped asada, nubbly chorizo, a couple of smart vegan options including half-pureed black beans scattered with cactus salad. Highest marks, though, go to the rich, hashed chicken thigh meat that absorbs mesquite smoke down to a cellular level. To echo the flavor, ladle over the salsa (among eight options) labeled “jiquilpan.” It’s based on a recipe riddled with smoked chiles that Villa’s father learned in Michoacán.
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(Jenn Harris / Los Angeles Times)
Shredded beef and refried beans taco at Asadero Chikali
East Los Angeles Shredded Beef Food Truck $
This stand makes some of my favorite flour tortillas in the entire city. They’re put together in front of you throughout the day, a steady procession of dough rolled by hand and then cooked on the flat top until mottled with toasty brown bubbles. They’re buttery, slender and surprisingly sturdy. My usual order is the carne asada chikali style, with the bits of smoky meat served under a spoonful of beans and guacamole. (“Chikali” is a locals-only nickname for the border city of Mexicali.) But on my last visit, I asked the taquero to surprise me with his favorite order. I watched as he used a spatula to smear refried beans onto a flour tortilla, then add a heap of shredded beef. The meat was tangled with stewed onion, peppers and tomato, a little sweet and full of long-simmered flavor. It melted into the creamy beans beneath. I rolled the tortilla and ate it greedily before the juices had a chance to drip out the back or soak the tortilla. The taquero is never wrong.
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(Bill Addison / Los Angeles Times)
Lamb barbacoa at Barba Kush
Boyle Heights Lamb Puesto $
For much of the last decade, some of L.A.’s most spectacular lamb barbacoa came from the hands of Petra Zavaleta, who learned the skill as a young woman cooking with her family in Tepeaca, a town in Puebla, Mexico. Lately she’s in residence on Sunday mornings at Armando’s Bakery in Boyle Heights. She often sells the thoroughly seasoned meat, just unwrapped from maguey leaves, by the pound. Ask for a taco, though, and she pats out a big tortilla, griddles it to order and fills it with soft ropes of barbacoa. If you had a raucous Saturday night, her mole de panza, a Pueblan style of menudo heady with lamb and spices, will restore you to the living. Follow Barba Kush on Instagram to see where Zavaleta and her family next pop up.
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Taco plato at Birria El Jaliciense
Boyle Heights Goat birria Puesto $
You’ll probably smell the succulent roast goat from blocks away before Birria El Jaliciense slides into view. The Ramirez family’s Saturday-only sidewalk operation started out serving tacos and platos made from one goat each week, and due to popularity, scaled up to three. Family members roast the meat for seven to eight hours, scenting it with a rub of garlic, onion, black pepper, cloves and other spices. Their consomé combines the chivo pan drippings with tomato, garlic and onion, and simmers away in a large pot during service. The family begins preparing at 5 a.m. the day before, and arrives in Boyle Heights early on Saturday mornings to fire up the oven where the morsels of goat gain a golden hue and crispy edges. There are tacos dorados, queso tacos and soft, straightforward tacos filled with the juicy, tender goat in light sauce, and they’re all worth ordering. But the best way to taste the robust, lightly gamey flavor of the meat is plato style, where various cuts — such as ribs or shredded meat — come with a side of warm tortillas to assemble your own tacos. The most popular plate is the No. 1, the surtida en plato with consomé, which is Jalisco-style chivo in an ode to patriarch Hector Ramirez’s hometown. Hector and his family begin selling around 8 a.m. and continue until the chivo is all gone. Come early and hungry.
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(Andrea D’Agosto / For The Times)
Poseidon taco at Evil Cooks
El Sereno Octopus Puesto $
Since 2018, the Eastside taqueria from Alex Garcia and Elvia Huerta has been bringing the rebellious attitude of metal music to modern L.A. Mexican cuisine. The pair first went viral for their McSatan taco, which transforms the classic American cheeseburger: The patty is smashed in a tortilla press and topped with American cheese, bacon, caramelized onions and creamy guacamole on a house-made corn tortilla that’s griddled with mozzarella cheese. Everything from pork to octopus, ice cream and lengua can get stacked on the trompo and shaved directly into tortillas, but the Poseidon is a favorite. Curling octopus tentacles are coated in the signature recado negro blend and stacked on the vertical spit with a pineapple and a white onion speared at either end. The taco is served with salsa quemada, pickled onions, cilantro, guacamole and pineapple and hits every note of spicy, sweet and earthy with a pleasant chew thanks to the slight char. The black pastor and asada tacos are almost equally delicious, or you can embrace the dark side with the Asesino that mixes octopus and pork pastor in a single taco. Evil Cooks also pops up at Smorgasburg L.A. every Sunday.
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(Stephanie Breijo / Los Angeles Times)
Maciza carnitas taco at Los Chingones
Boyle Heights Puesto $
Carlos Escobar and his team set up the large copper cazos around 5:30 a.m. every day but Friday, stewing some of L.A.’s most succulent carnitas for hours in a mix of lard, garlic and Coca-Cola. The pork bubbles away, plumes of fragrant steam lifting from a corner of the black-tented puesto in Boyle Heights. Carnitas are the specialty at Los Chingones, and the chilaquiles — especially topped with carnitas — have taken on a life of their own. But the more simple tacos are also worth the stop, with Escobar and his team thwacking the fresh maciza, buche, costilla, cueritos and more with butcher knives, then scooping a hearty portion into warm corn tortillas. The straightforward maciza is juicy, just-salty and perfectly unctuous, the meat chopped into large morsels that shred away under the weight of the salsas. Be sure to load up on the salsa featuring slim slices of nopales tossed with tomatoes and onions in addition to the more ubiquitous fixings.
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(Mariah Tauger / Los Angeles Times)
Lamb barbacoa flauta at Los Dorados L.A.
El Sereno Lamb Food Truck $
From an ice-blue trailer covered in overlapping murals that also occasionally flaunts a disco ball, Steven Orozco Torres serves tacos dorados — a.k.a. flautas — in a handful of excellent variations. I’m here chiefly for the flauta that begins with a lamb barbacoa recipe passed down to Torres from his father-in-law, who learned the method for steaming and then roasting the meat to melted lushness in Texcoco, Mexico. Torres and his team roll the lamb into a tortilla and it’s dunked in the fryer until smashingly crisp, painted with crema and salsa borracha that gives off a distinct whiff of beer, and finished with flurries of cotija. It’s at once earthy and sharp, creamy and crumbly. The effects are similar for chicken tinga humming with chipotle and a duo of chorizo and potato. It’s all a masterclass in flauta engineering. Los Dorados lists its locations (mostly Friday through Sunday, and often in El Sereno) on Instagram weekly. Torres, a former bartender, often parks in front of bars and breweries. Needless to say, dorados are ace drinking food.
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(Bill Addison / Los Angeles Times)
Lamb barbacoa taco at Los Garduños Barbacoa
Lincoln Heights Lamb Puesto $
On Saturday and Sunday mornings in Lincoln Heights, look for the covered stand Josefina Garduño sets up with her family in front of the Smart & Final parking lot, near the intersection of Pasadena Avenue and South Avenue 24. Her sole focus: lamb barbacoa, cooked overnight using family techniques honed in Capulhuac, a village about 30 miles southwest of Mexico City where many residents perfect barbacoa to sell in the capital on the weekends. The crew behind Los Garduños Barbacoa sets up an efficient assembly line: One person chops a mix of meats to order, either by the number of tacos or by the pound, while another shapes tortillas for the grill. Salsas lean dense and intense; a particularly potent roja registers as mulchy and earthy, an ideal pairing for the fragrant, simply seasoned lamb. Someone will ask if you’d like a side of grilled nopales, or a cup of spicy consomé bobbing with chickpeas and wisps of meat. Say yes to both.
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(Andrea D’Agosto / For The Times)
Brisket taco at Macheen
Boyle Heights Brisket Dine In $
No one is doing it quite like Jonathan Perez. The chef is building a loyal following across Los Angeles through his indefinite residencies at Milpa Grille cafe and modern-Mexican gastropub Distrito Catorce, plus his new torta shop Birote Deli. Though all of these are worth repeat visits, his taqueria, Macheen, serves a kaleidoscope of color and flavor on freshly pressed corn and flour tortillas. At Milpa Grille and on Sundays at Smorgasburg, Macheen’s cheffy but familiar tacos don’t speak for themselves so much as they sing: The morning tacos feature soft-scrambled eggs made with cotija, Swiss cheese, butter and olive oil, and are so custardy and light they’re easily some of the best breakfast tacos in the city — if not the best. Sometimes they include fried chicken, sometimes longaniza. While many of the proteins can be found on both the breakfast and lunch tacos, the toppings and flavors differ wildly. No matter the time of day, order the brisket if you see it on the menu: Perez confits it for six hours with pork lard, fresh garlic, bay leaves, onions and Coca-Cola to the point where the morsels of meat practically disintegrate on the tongue, and the residual liquid is used to make Macheen’s fresh flour tortillas. At breakfast it’s served with eggs, cotija and salsa, and then at lunch, find the brisket in El Chilango taco with a slick of chorizo-and-bacon beans, tangy escabeche and aguacate on a thick blue-corn tortilla.
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(Stephanie Breijo / Los Angeles Times)
Marlin taco at Mariscos El Camaron Pelado
Lincoln Heights Fish Dine In $
This mariscos restaurant has been a mainstay for nearly a decade in Lincoln Heights, and while it’s known for its micheladas rimmed with shrimp and cucumber, its tacos are top notch. The marlin taco sandwiches the meaty fish between layers of mozzarella, which oozes out of the griddled, just-blistered corn tortilla in large bubbles, resulting in a perfect crunchy-chewy dynamic in each bite. A sauté of tomatoes, onions, cilantro and garlic is reduced to a potent, textural sauce that keeps the taco moist and messy, juice and oil running down your fingers and hands. Don’t let a flavorful drop go to waste.
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(Andrea D’Agosto / For The Times)
Tacos dorados de camarón at Mariscos Jalisco
Boyle Heights Shrimp Food Truck $
For 22 years, Raul Ortega has been parking his shiny lonchera on Olympic Boulevard, serving what has become one of the city’s canonic dishes. His tacos dorados de camarón ensnare a mixture of spiced, minced shrimp with the elegance of a Venus flytrap. The edges of the tortillas sizzle and crisp in the fryer, while the filling cooks to improbable creaminess. Be careful: The first bite is usually lava-hot, even with the cooling relief of sliced avocado and thin red salsa flooding the surface. Reaching ideal temperature, the range of textures races so fast over the palate that it’s hard for the brain to keep up. I’ve long believed Ortega’s masterpiece is a worthy first-ever meal in Los Angeles. He operates three additional outposts, including a counter restaurant in Pomona and a lonchera on the Westside. If none of them quite reaches the zeniths of the Boyle Heights truck, it still might be the most incredible seafood taco you’ve ever had, and a fast-track pass into the city’s culinary identity.
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(Stephanie Breijo / Los Angeles Times)
Poseido at Mariscos 4 Vientos
Boyle Heights Shrimp Food Truck $
What’s better than an order of crisp-shelled, piping hot shrimp tacos dorados? At Mariscos 4 Vientos, the answer is simple: the Poseido, or the fried shrimp taco piled with a small mountain of aguachile rojo. The local family empire that began in 1989 is now overseen by its founder’s son, Erik Luevanos, and encompasses two Boyle Heights restaurants and one downtown, plus a food truck. While highlights include a rich, gooey smoked-marlin taco, seafood tostadas piled to the heavens and a gobernador laced with seared jalapeños, the fried shrimp tacos at this Jalisco-style mariscos shop are fan favorites and some of the oldest in L.A. Level them up by ordering the Poseido, which tops the classic fried shrimp-and-potato taco with sliced avocado and a hearty portion of meaty octopus, plump shrimp, cucumber and red onion all sauced in a creeping, potent heat. The juxtaposition of fresh-from-the-fryer hot tacos and bracingly cold aguachile rojo makes for a memorable, satisfying bite.
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(Stephanie Breijo / Los Angeles Times)
Chicken neck taco at Tacos Santa Rita Jalisco
East Los Angeles Pollo Food Truck $
Can you judge a person by the way they eat a chicken neck taco?
At Tacos Santa Rita Jalisco, longtime specialists in pescuezos de pollo, some regulars unabashedly chomp through the tortilla draped over the fried chicken necks, maneuvering around the bones and nonchalantly pulling any stray bits from their mouths. Others are almost surgical in their approach. Using their hands to carefully pluck the meat from the six necks that come in every order, they arrange everything in neat piles and then assemble tidy tacos with a pleasing ratio of tender chicken meat and crisp skin plus a dollop of the stand’s warm red or green salsa, spooned still steaming from Santa Rita’s salsa station on the freshly scrubbed covered patio where a goofy larger-than-life plaster rabbit watches over the terrazzo tables beside the permanently parked taco truck.
Most of us fall somewhere between the carefree and the deliberate, using snatches of tortilla to pull the chicken off the bone and adding a splash of salsa. But no matter which style you use, the first thing to do after you get your order of pescuezos is lift the tortilla and find the neck with the biggest puff of chicken skin. Pull it off the bone and pop it in your mouth. It’s one of the best bites of food you’ll ever eat in this city.
I first tried pescuezos de pollo in 2014 with Jonathan Gold when he featured Santa Rita as a Taco Tuesday pick in this paper: “The skin is pushed up the neck before frying, which gives the effect of a tanned, meaty cylinder surmounted by an Elizabethan collar of pure crunch.” Ten years later, the crunch hasn’t diminished.
At Tacos Santa Rita Jalisco, longtime specialists in pescuezos de pollo, some regulars unabashedly chomp through the tortilla draped over the fried chicken necks, maneuvering around the bones and nonchalantly pulling any stray bits from their mouths. Others are almost surgical in their approach. Using their hands to carefully pluck the meat from the six necks that come in every order, they arrange everything in neat piles and then assemble tidy tacos with a pleasing ratio of tender chicken meat and crisp skin plus a dollop of the stand’s warm red or green salsa, spooned still steaming from Santa Rita’s salsa station on the freshly scrubbed covered patio where a goofy larger-than-life plaster rabbit watches over the terrazzo tables beside the permanently parked taco truck.
Most of us fall somewhere between the carefree and the deliberate, using snatches of tortilla to pull the chicken off the bone and adding a splash of salsa. But no matter which style you use, the first thing to do after you get your order of pescuezos is lift the tortilla and find the neck with the biggest puff of chicken skin. Pull it off the bone and pop it in your mouth. It’s one of the best bites of food you’ll ever eat in this city.
I first tried pescuezos de pollo in 2014 with Jonathan Gold when he featured Santa Rita as a Taco Tuesday pick in this paper: “The skin is pushed up the neck before frying, which gives the effect of a tanned, meaty cylinder surmounted by an Elizabethan collar of pure crunch.” Ten years later, the crunch hasn’t diminished.
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(Jenn Harris / Los Angeles Times)
Carnitas taco at Sergio’s Tacos
East Los Angeles Carnitas Dine In $
Sergio’s is not a destination-type place with a single specialty that attracts fans in droves. It’s a place where you can get a $10 burrito on Tortilleria La California tortillas that will keep you full for 12 hours. There’s menudo every day. And the carnitas tacos are the variety you can and should eat by the half dozen. The meat is slightly stringy and tender with crispy bits on all the edges. It’s a generously stuffed taco that I like to dress with diced raw onion, cilantro and enough of the red salsa to make my eyes water. There are three locations, though I prefer the dining room and the dinky television at the one on East Olympic Boulevard.
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(Andrea D’Agosto / For The Times)
Cachete taco at Tacos Al Vapor El Canelo
East Los Angeles Cachete Dine In $
For true connoisseurs of cachete, there is no better beacon than cabeza specialist Tacos Al Vapor El Canelo, a walk-up window in a strip mall on Whittier Boulevard in East L.A. (you can’t miss it — the parking lot is lined with banners and colorful papel picado flags). A favorite cut of beef, the cheek is tender but flavorful, fatty enough but with plenty of lean meat — a gateway to the deliciousness of cabeza, which refers to various parts of the cow’s head. It’s hard to find taco artisans who parse the intricacies that make up the cabeza universe of flavors and textures: cheeks, lips, brains, tendon and tongue. At family-owned El Canelo, each of these gets its own taco. Labio is unctuous with bits of gelatinous blobs. Sesos are soft, mild and creamy, while nervio includes cartilage that clings to the meat, crunchy and chewy. The cachete is especially flavorful here, infused with aromatics, herbs and spices added while the meat is long-simmered. Before serving it’s steamed along tortillas and plated simply — a purist’s portion of tortilla and meat with requisite cilantro and onions and your choice of salsa verde or habanero. Eat your tacos in the shade on the single red bench provided in front of the shop, with an essential Jarritos tamarindo.
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(Bill Addison / Los Angeles Times)
Tacos árabes especiales at Los Originales Tacos Árabes De Puebla
Boyle Heights Árabes Food Truck $
Puebla-style tacos árabes trace back to at least the 1930s, maybe earlier, and their exact origins are murky and contested. Around the end of the Ottoman Empire, either Lebanese or Iraqi immigrants arrived in east-central Mexico and introduced their tradition of shawarma: layering well-spiced, thinly sliced lamb meat on a spit and slicing to order as it spun and roasted. Pork, which had been introduced by colonizers to North America in the 1500s, eventually replaced the more-expensive lamb, and the adaptive seasonings came to include lime juice and chipotle. The now-classic vehicle for tacos árabes remains a yeasted flour tortilla, often called pan árabe, thin but with just enough fermentation to recall flatbread.
Staffers at the Boyle Heights truck owned by Merced Villegas and her husband, Alfredo, will happily recount a version of this history, while urging you to try tacos árabes especiales: cumin-scented pork carved from the trompo, enfolded in the hybrid tortilla, squiggled with chipotle salsa and dressed with sliced avocado and lacy strings of quesillo. It tastes, in the best sense, pretty much as you might imagine: a dish of two cultures merged by circumstance and acumen.
Staffers at the Boyle Heights truck owned by Merced Villegas and her husband, Alfredo, will happily recount a version of this history, while urging you to try tacos árabes especiales: cumin-scented pork carved from the trompo, enfolded in the hybrid tortilla, squiggled with chipotle salsa and dressed with sliced avocado and lacy strings of quesillo. It tastes, in the best sense, pretty much as you might imagine: a dish of two cultures merged by circumstance and acumen.
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(Jenn Harris / Los Angeles Times)
Fried fish taco at Tacos Baja
East Los Angeles Fish Dine In $
Tina Turner’s “Simply the Best” creeps into my head whenever I pull into the parking lot of Tacos Baja in East Los Angeles. “Simply the best” is the restaurant slogan, featured at all three locations, on the social media accounts and written on all the signage. The restaurant is known for its excellent Ensenada-style fish and shrimp tacos, both battered in a tempura-like coating or grilled. The fried fish is the one I use to measure against all other Ensenada-style fish tacos. The filet of sea bass is plump and meaty with a thin, golden fried batter that supplies crunch but does not overpower the fish. There’s a heap of shredded cabbage, chunky pico de gallo and a drizzle of crema that work together to cool the hot fish and temper the heat of the salsa. The two corn tortillas are just strong enough to hold it all in without too much spillage. You’re simply the best, better than all the rest.
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(Bill Addison / Los Angeles Times)
Papa con chorizo at Tacos De Canasta El Abuelo
Boyle Heights Papa con chorizo Puesto $
Every morning at 7 a.m., next to the AutoZone in Boyle Heights, a stand is set up to sell one of L.A.’s best examples of a specific street food: tacos de canasta. The technique commonly involves layering small corn tortillas — stuffed with a modest amount of filling and folded into half-moons — in a basket. Ladling over hot, chile-infused oil and then covering the small tacos in kitchen towels helps keep them warm throughout the day. Tacos de Canasta el Abuelo has a short menu with three variations: softly textured chicharrón, stewed beans and, my favorite for its contrasts and porky oomph, papas con chorizo. In their cocoons, the steaming tortillas take on the smoothness of crepes. You’re encouraged to generously dress your order with crema, queso, salsas, chopped cabbage and pickled vegetables, all of which turn the flavors from simple to symphonic.
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(Stephanie Breijo / Los Angeles Times)
Adobada at Tacos Don Cuco
East Los Angeles Adobada Food Truck $
It can feel like dinner and a show: If you catch team members on a spirited night, they sling salsas into the air by the spoonful, catching them with tacos one after the next. But at Tacos Don Cuco, the showmanship from the eponymous taquero and his staff is only part of the draw. The Tijuana-style taco operation, with four locations across L.A. and Pomona, piles mesquite-grilled meats into thin, freshly made corn tortillas that spill textural guacamole and salsas out of their slightly conical-formed paper wrappers. It’s difficult to go wrong with any meat here — chorizo, carne asada, pollo asada, tripa and al pastor — always chopped fresh from the grill or sliced to order right off the trompo. Perhaps best of all is the adobada, which is thick with rubbed spices, caramelized and crispy at the edges, and garners even more smokiness off the mesquite grill.
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(Betty Hallock / Los Angeles Times)
Lengua taco at Tacos El Toro
East Los Angeles Lengua Puesto $
Benjamin Padilla has a way with a cleaver. He pulls a hunk of lengua from his vaporera, a large steel steam table set up in his East L.A. yard, and thinly slices the fatty, tender tongue. If you ask for it picada, he chops it into a fine dice, working quickly, the edge of his knife hitting the board rat-a-tat fast. Everything is cut to order.
Through a haze of steam, you can see tortillas on top of the mounds of meat, like patches of snow on a hillside. Padilla grabs the warm, vapor-infused tortillas — pale but with charred edges and slightly thicker than most, sourced from Tijuana — and fills them quickly. He throws the tacos onto a plate in a circular pattern, sprinkling them with onions and cilantro as he goes, and dousing them with salsa verde, with the final taco always placed on top in the center.
An al vapor maestro, Padilla says his uncles in Jalisco taught him to cook the specialty cuts of tongue, cachete, labio and cabeza, all from the head of the cow, all boiled with aromatics and steamed (except for the asada, which is grilled first) to ultimate tenderness. Each cut of meat is a study in different mixtures of fattiness and texture — cabeza chopped so fine it’s almost a chunky paste, cachete nearly shredded and labio with pockets of gelatinous gobs. Eat them from a bench on the sidewalk, and watch Padilla at work in a steam cloud dream.
Through a haze of steam, you can see tortillas on top of the mounds of meat, like patches of snow on a hillside. Padilla grabs the warm, vapor-infused tortillas — pale but with charred edges and slightly thicker than most, sourced from Tijuana — and fills them quickly. He throws the tacos onto a plate in a circular pattern, sprinkling them with onions and cilantro as he goes, and dousing them with salsa verde, with the final taco always placed on top in the center.
An al vapor maestro, Padilla says his uncles in Jalisco taught him to cook the specialty cuts of tongue, cachete, labio and cabeza, all from the head of the cow, all boiled with aromatics and steamed (except for the asada, which is grilled first) to ultimate tenderness. Each cut of meat is a study in different mixtures of fattiness and texture — cabeza chopped so fine it’s almost a chunky paste, cachete nearly shredded and labio with pockets of gelatinous gobs. Eat them from a bench on the sidewalk, and watch Padilla at work in a steam cloud dream.
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(Laurie Ochoa / Los Angeles Times)
Taco campechano at Taquearte California
Pico Rivera Campechano Dine In $
Time your visit right and you can eat Taquearte California’s acclaimed chilaquiles for breakfast and then, if you linger until noon when the menu expands, add a taco to share. And you will have to share if you’ve been eating chilaquiles. This taco is loaded.
Early customers will remember the overlapping two-tortilla construction of the open-faced Taquearte taco. It’s since evolved into a single plate-size homemade tortilla as its base, put to its best use in the taco campechano, which here means crumbles of crisped chorizo added to the meat you’ve chosen – bistec, costilla, pechuga or chuleta grilled and then seared on the plancha. I like the all-pork chuleta and chorizo. Then come grilled onions and, surprising to many who have not seen this Mexico City taco style, a layer of fluffy mashed potatoes ready to absorb your choice of Taquearte’s killer salsas (don’t miss the salsa macha).
Owners Anyelo Farfán and Monica Quinto will let you get even more elaborate with cheese, avocado and, yes, bacon. But then you might need a fork.
Early customers will remember the overlapping two-tortilla construction of the open-faced Taquearte taco. It’s since evolved into a single plate-size homemade tortilla as its base, put to its best use in the taco campechano, which here means crumbles of crisped chorizo added to the meat you’ve chosen – bistec, costilla, pechuga or chuleta grilled and then seared on the plancha. I like the all-pork chuleta and chorizo. Then come grilled onions and, surprising to many who have not seen this Mexico City taco style, a layer of fluffy mashed potatoes ready to absorb your choice of Taquearte’s killer salsas (don’t miss the salsa macha).
Owners Anyelo Farfán and Monica Quinto will let you get even more elaborate with cheese, avocado and, yes, bacon. But then you might need a fork.
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(Betty Hallock / Los Angeles Times)
Chicken shawarma taco at X’tiosu Kitchen
Boyle Heights Chicken shawarma Dine In $
I’m addicted to the green tahini salsa at X’tiosu Kitchen, the Boyle Heights walk-up window where you order the Mexican-Mediterranean specialties of brothers Felipe and Ignacio Santiago. That means I get the chicken shawarma taco every time. The spit-grilled meat that Lebanese immigrants brought to Mexico produced al pastor. But it was also working in the Lebanese restaurant Sunnin in Los Angeles that inspired the Santiagos to create what they call Arabesque Oaxacan cooking. The spice-rubbed roasted chicken is shaved over corn tortillas and ladled with a generous amount of that green garlicky salsa verde, also referred to at X’tiosu as Arabesque salsa. The garnishes — onions and cilantro along with the pink turnip pickles that are ubiquitous in Levantine dishes — are key here to straddling two cuisines.
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(Shelby Moore / For The Times)
Puffy taco at Bar Amá
Downtown L.A. Tex-Mex Dine In $$
Josef Centeno is a son of San Antonio. At his downtown cantina, he bridges the Tex-Mex traditions of his origin city with the farmers market obsession of his chosen home. Few dishes remain static on Centeno’s menus — he’s one of our most restlessly creative chefs — but one fixture that remains constant isn’t even listed among the items. You need to know to ask for puffy tacos, a San Antonio specialty with connections to Arturo’s Puffy Taco in Whittier. He and his team fry golf ball-size rounds of fresh masa into soft, billowing shells that crackle lightly on the outside. Fillings may rotate. I most love the snap of shrimp but would never turn away from ranchero chicken or, for a meat-free option, soyrizo. They arrive lightly dressed in shredded cabbage, tomato salsa, crema, chopped onion and cilantro. Eat them fast while they’re hot and nearly floating. They’ll deflate by nearly the last bite, which is part of the fun.
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(Danielle Dorsey / Los Angeles Times)
Costilla taco at Carnitas Los Gabrieles
Downtown L.A. Carnitas Puesto $
Bright red banners advertising “carnitas” welcome you to Carnitas los Gabrieles, a puesto next to Mercado Olympic in downtown. The street stand overflows onto the sidewalk with plastic red tables and stools, planchas and a row of aguas frescas in vitroleros. At the center of the action is taquera Guadalupe Baez, who churns pork in a massive cazo that bubbles golden-brown under the morning light. Colanders with handles sit on the perimeter of the deep-bottomed vat and hold different cuts of meat — buche, cueritos, lengua, nana (pig uterus), oreja (pig ear). Order them by the pound or in tacos with handmade corn tortillas that are cooked to order. If you’re torn between the options, Baez will gently guide you toward the most popular selections: carnitas, mixto and costilla. All are delicious and a stellar representation of Baez’s skills, which were honed in Huetamo, in Michoacán state, under the direction of her cousin, but my favorite is the costilla, luscious with fat and brightened with the full range of dressings available: chunky pico de gallo, pickled onions, cooling green and spicy red salsas and a squirt from a lime wedge. Open every day at 8:30 a.m., Carnitas los Gabrieles usually sells out by noon.
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(Betty Hallock / Los Angeles Times)
Idol potato taco with chorizo beans at Chuy’s Tacos Dorados
Downtown L.A. Potato Dine In $
For many Southern Californians, their taste for tacos dorados probably stems from an amalgam of collectively nostalgic varieties: the American hard-shell tacos of pre-made crunchy tortillas with seasoned ground beef, lettuce and shredded cheddar; the filled, fried tacos of regional cuisines across Mexico; and flautas or taquitos. Betsy Leon’s version at Chuy’s Tacos Dorados is, at its core, a family recipe handed down from generation to generation, starting with relatives who owned a restaurant in Culiacán and filled tortillas with seasoned potato or carne deshebrada before frying. These are the foundational fillings for Leon’s tacos at Chuy’s, located inside a loading dock of a former meatpacking company in the Arts District. They’re topped with fistfuls of shredded cheddar and citrusy pickled onions, and all are expertly fried so that they are deliciously crunchy without being at all greasy. Several meat-and/or-potato combinations are offered, and everyone is going to land on their own preferences, all of them served with Leon’s warm, brothy salsas. I live close to Chuy’s, and my favorite taco has become an addictive habit: the Idol potato taco with chorizo refried beans. Sometimes it comes topped with onions and sometimes it doesn’t, so now I remember to ask for them.
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(Betty Hallock / Los Angeles Times)
Beef taquito at Cielito Lindo
Downtown L.A. Taquito Dine In $
Any chronicle of tacos in Los Angeles will include Cielito Lindo, the tiny stand on historic Olvera Street that has been rolling and frying taquitos for 90 years. Aurora Guerrero created the recipe for the beef-filled rolled tacos ladled with her tangy, bright avocado sauce and opened Cielito Lindo in 1934. It is now operated by her grandchildren. The thick house-made tortillas yield substantial taquitos that are each the size of a small rolling pin, filled with shredded hunks of beef. Once fried, the ends are crispy, and as you eat toward the center of the taquito, it’s satisfyingly chewy. On a recent weekday afternoon, the line extends 10 people deep, and though the menu also lists chile rellenos, tamales and burritos, everyone’s here for the taquitos. The two customers ahead of me each order taquitos by the half-dozen, lined up in neat rows on their plates, blanketed in so much green sauce it is spilling over the rims. You can get a snack of two taquitos for $6.50 or combine them in mixed plates, such as combination No. 1 — three beef taquitos with beans and cheese for $12.50. Taquitos by the dozen for cooking at home are available, and you can even buy the avocado sauce by the gallon (it’s that famous).
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(Danielle Dorsey / Los Angeles Times)
Lobster taco at Del Mar Ostioneria
Mid-Wilshire Lobster Food Truck $$
Housed in a La Brea strip mall with a wedding chapel, this mariscos-themed truck was opened in early 2023 by partners Roberto Pérez, whose father owns the parking lot, and Francisco Leal, a chef who grew up in coastal Sinaloa and once ran his own sushi restaurant in Baja California Sur. The truck with a focus on high-quality mariscos tinged with Japanese influence is also home to the best lobster taco you’ll find in the whole of Los Angeles. The taco comes on a thick blue corn tortilla with griddled queso, a generous portion of lobster that’s guaranteed to spill, thick slices of avocado, strands of crispy leeks and a house chipotle sauce drizzled on top. It’s a majestic and indulgent taco with buttery meat and an operatic range of textures and flavors. You’ll also find Kumamoto oysters and a selection of sashimi topped with house ponzu and yuzu sauces, plus aguachiles and ceviches. But the crispy octopus with a spicy tamarind sauce, Baja fish with breaded halibut and decadent filet mignon taco with pistachio sauce prove nearly as delicious as the lobster taco. My advice is to invite at least one friend. As you watch other customers retrieve their orders from the window, your hungry eyes will no doubt place orders that your stomach alone can’t cash, so you might as well share.
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(Andrea D’Agosto / For The Times)
Fish flauta at Ditroit
Downtown L.A. Fish Dine In $
Enrique Olvera’s restaurant group, Casamata, opened its outdoor taqueria in the alley behind Arts District jewel Damian in December 2020. Since practically its first week, the fan-favorite at Ditroit has been the fish flauta. The fish in the filling can change (it’s often swordfish), but the setup is consistent: A tortilla rolled into a thin, extra-long cylinder sizzles in the fryer to thorough crispness, arriving at the table dressed with crema, punchy salsa verde, cabbage slaw and a sprinkling of queso fresco. It’s wonderful. Beyond the flauta, Ditroit could use an infusion of energy. The quality of the other meats — usually suadero and carnitas — lean dry, and L.A. is too competitive a field for consistent disappointments. Happily, the flauta (or two if you’re really hungry) rates as a complete meal on its own, paired with cucumber-yuzu agua fresca perfumed with palo santo.
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(Danielle Dorsey / Los Angeles Times)
Goat birria tacos at El Parian Restaurant
Pico-Union Goat birria Dine In $
The Pico-Union neighborhood that houses El Parian has changed immensely since The Times’ late restaurant critic Jonathan Gold first reviewed the restaurant in 1990. El Parian might even appear shuttered at first glance, with wrought-iron box cages over its street-facing windows and door. But enter through the parking lot and you’ll find a preserved interior with the same decor that Gold described: a colorful painted map of Mexico along one wall, brick-tile flooring and rows of refrigerators stocked with Mexican beer.
The restaurant opened in 1968, and its signature dish is still Jalisco-style goat birria, available by the pound. It comes bobbing in a bowl of ruddy consomé with handmade tortillas, chopped white onion and cilantro sprigs on the side. The goat is earthy, only slightly gamey and so tender that it practically dissolves in your mouth. The tortillas are thick and chewy enough to stand up to a generous serving of the birria. The consomé packs enough flavor to drink on its own. I preferred topping my tacos with the chunky red salsa served with complimentary tortilla chips over the bottled option that arrived with my plate.
The restaurant opened in 1968, and its signature dish is still Jalisco-style goat birria, available by the pound. It comes bobbing in a bowl of ruddy consomé with handmade tortillas, chopped white onion and cilantro sprigs on the side. The goat is earthy, only slightly gamey and so tender that it practically dissolves in your mouth. The tortillas are thick and chewy enough to stand up to a generous serving of the birria. The consomé packs enough flavor to drink on its own. I preferred topping my tacos with the chunky red salsa served with complimentary tortilla chips over the bottled option that arrived with my plate.
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(Andrea D’Agosto / For The Times)
Chile colorado taco at El Ruso
Echo Park Chile Colorado Food Truck $
Taquero Walter Soto and tortillera Julia Silva had a viral moment just before the pandemic, when they set up a trailer along with a few covered tables on a side street off Olympic Boulevard in Boyle Heights. The magnificence of the tacos — Silva’s supple, consummate flour tortillas married to Soto’s savvy with meats and mastery over the griddle — made El Ruso an Instagram-famous stop on the Los Angeles taco circuit. But as a team they were no overnight sensation: They’d been working together, for others and themselves, for 20 years. These days, the El Ruso lonchera parks most frequently near Sunset Boulevard and Echo Park Avenue. The menu might change a little daily, but their collaboration yields tacos as layered in flavor and as generous of spirit as ever. The Sonoran-style chile colorado, based on Silva’s mother’s recipe, glows a radioactive red-orange, and the spice comes across more earthen than incendiary. Its rich, satiny texture nearly melts into the tortilla, making for a taco that can slip and slide like a water balloon. The deliciousness merits the juggling.
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(Jenn Harris / Los Angeles Times)
Beef and pickle taco at Escuela Taqueria
Fairfax Gringo Dine In $$
This is one of the tacos I recommend most in the city, partly because it’s delicious and so unexpected. It’s a singular flavor, though the name may dupe you into thinking you’re in for a hamburger taco. The fried shells are always scorching, bubbly and glistening with residual oil. The ground beef and potato in the filling become one entity, a savory paste-like substance in the bottom of the curved, hot tortilla. There’s a handful of shredded cheddar cheese that’s half melted by the time the taco hits your table. A few dill pickle chips are balanced precariously over the top, just peeking out and over the shell. I would never think to add dill pickle to a taco, but that bite of acid and freshness hits the same as a handful of pickled onions. The tacos are on the smaller side, so I typically eat four at a time. No salsa required.
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(Danielle Dorsey / Los Angeles Times)
Sweet potato taco at Guerrilla Tacos
Downtown L.A. Sweet potato Dine In $$
Guerrilla Tacos has always taken a boundary-pushing, L.A.-specific approach to tacos. Its name is a reference to the innovative strategies used in guerrilla warfare and the tenacity of street food vendors that persist in spite of threats from code enforcement. Founded by chef Wes Avila as a food cart in 2012, it grew into a truck the following year and the mural-bright Arts District restaurant followed in 2018, now helmed by owner Brittney Valles alongside chef Crystal Espinoza.
Several of the OG tacos that earned Guerrilla Tacos a Bib Gourmand nod from the Michelin Guide in 2019 are still on the menu. The hard-shelled Pocho with ground chuck is a tribute to the “gringo”-style tacos that Avila ate as a kid, but the best option on the permanent taco menu is the sweet potato that veers into Peruvian and Mediterranean flavors with rounds of buttery, skin-on sweet potato, crispy corn, slightly sour feta cheese, chopped scallions and a thick, nutty almond-cashew chile sauce. It’s a symphony of textures composed with a Gustavo Dudamel-level of culinary prowess.
If I’m being honest, I love the lomo saltado taco just as much as the sweet potato. It bulks with juicy strips of marinated steak, roasted potatoes, sauteed red onions and tomatoes, aji verde and finely chopped cilantro on a fatty, char-spotted flour tortilla. It’s available only seasonally, so don’t skip one if you see it on the menu.
Several of the OG tacos that earned Guerrilla Tacos a Bib Gourmand nod from the Michelin Guide in 2019 are still on the menu. The hard-shelled Pocho with ground chuck is a tribute to the “gringo”-style tacos that Avila ate as a kid, but the best option on the permanent taco menu is the sweet potato that veers into Peruvian and Mediterranean flavors with rounds of buttery, skin-on sweet potato, crispy corn, slightly sour feta cheese, chopped scallions and a thick, nutty almond-cashew chile sauce. It’s a symphony of textures composed with a Gustavo Dudamel-level of culinary prowess.
If I’m being honest, I love the lomo saltado taco just as much as the sweet potato. It bulks with juicy strips of marinated steak, roasted potatoes, sauteed red onions and tomatoes, aji verde and finely chopped cilantro on a fatty, char-spotted flour tortilla. It’s available only seasonally, so don’t skip one if you see it on the menu.
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(Stephanie Breijo / Los Angeles Times)
Mole poblano taco at Guisados
Downtown L.A. Mole Poblano Dine In $
The downtown Los Angeles location is where my budding love for corn tortillas turned into an obsession. When my office was down the street, I used to come for lunch at least twice a week. I watched the woman in the window massage a mound of masa in a large bowl. When an order came in, she would break off a golf ball-size nub, roll it in her hands and then use a tortilla press to flatten it. The entire process took all of three seconds. She threw the newly formed tortilla on the comal, where it bubbled, blistered and turned a pale gold. When you cradle your taco, the tortilla is still warm. The filling that most accentuates the pure corn flavor and the sturdiness of the tortilla is the mole poblano. The shredded chicken breast is saturated in a chocolate-colored bittersweet mole that’s voluptuous in the mouth with spice and chiles. A cooling zigzag of sour cream and crumbles of queso fresco bolster its decadence and temper the heat. There’s some crunch from toasted pepitas and a single sliver of raw red onion. I usually end up ordering an extra tortilla to help sop up any mole that may have escaped the taco.
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(Bill Addison / Los Angeles Times)
Cochinita pibil at La Flor de Yucatán
Pico-Union Cochinita Pibil Dine In $
The small storefront of this long-running Yucatecan operation in Pico-Union belies the span on its menu. Its bakery case displays shelves crammed with sweet and savory breads, pastries and cakes. A mounted screen flashes a broader repertoire of dishes: tortas, tamales, burritos, starters like empanadas and mint-flecked kibbeh and specials that include morcia and relleno negro (turkey stew stacked with layers of spice). The children of Antonio Burgos, and his wife, Rosy, who founded the business in the 1970s, continue to prepare the family’s recipe for cochinita pibil: They steep the pork in a traditional marinade of achiote and sour orange juice, slowly roasting it in the oven, swaddled in banana leaves. Tufted on corn tortillas, the tender threads of meat taste especially rich and citrusy against the requisite garnish of sliced pickled onions. These are tacos to wolf down quickly and happily on one of the restaurant’s sidewalk tables.
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(Stephanie Breijo / Los Angeles Times)
Gringo taco at La Tostaderia
Downtown L.A. Seafood Dine In $
Don’t let the name fool you: There’s much more to love beyond the tostadas at this mariscos stall in Grand Central Market. Tacos, ceviches, aguachiles and daily specials abound at the space from chef-restaurateur Fernando Villagomez, who also founded nearby booths Villa Moreliana and La Frutería. To find his bright and tangy spin on seafood in multiple forms, look for the neon mermaid sign within the historic food hall. For many, the words “gringo taco” likely conjure hard-shell tacos stuffed with ground beef, shredded lettuce and ribbons of cheddar cheese. At La Tostaderia, the gringo taco takes an almost gobernador-like form, with not only shrimp but meaty chunks of octopus blanketed by Oaxacan cheese. The seafood and cheese are seared on the plancha and served gooey with crisp edges in a soft corn tortilla, hidden under a mountain of shredded radish, pops of Fresno chiles and green onion, and a squiggle of sweet-spicy chipotle aioli. Hot, crunchy, cool, chewy, cheesy, refreshing — this taco’s got it all. But if you’d rather sample Villagomez’s mariscos, La Tostaderia also offers a mini-taco sampler of six varieties.
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(Jenn Harris / Los Angeles Times)
Goat birria quesataco at Tacos Y Birria La Unica
Mid-City Goat birria Food Truck $
I would never turn down a beef birria taco from the Tacos y Birria la Unica truck, but for that distinct, pure animal funk, there’s only goat. The meat is stewed until the strands are limp, then nestled into a crisp, bubbly shell cushioned with a glob of melted cheese. The accompanying Styrofoam cup of consomé is tinged with cinnamon and clove and cluttered with stray bits of goat. A squirt of the red salsa powers through the richness of the added cheese. There is only one way to describe the state I find myself in mid-goat birria quesataco with my chin glistening with consomé and my mouth full of crunch, meat juice and cheese. Feral. When you leave, there should be a faint orange rim around your mouth and a graveyard of red-stained napkins to pile into the trash bin. The truck in Mid-City is preferred for personal geographic reasons, but the one that parks in Boyle Heights is just as stellar.
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