Taquero Ian Leyva’s beef barbacoa stand has put northern Mexican pit roasting on the LA map in a city that’s more familiar with central and southern lamb and goat barbacoa. Like his contemporaries in Chihuahua, Leyva slowly simmers beef cheeks and tongue in a large pot on a stove top, until the meat melts and fuses together in juicy clumps to spoon onto tacos, lonches (tortas), and into thin burritos. Whether tacos, lonche, or burros — the buttery, rich must-have consome is the star of the show.  

For barbacoyero Gonzalo Ramírez, there’s only one way to make barbacoa, the recipe he learned from his grandfather in Atotonilco El Grande, Hidalgo. Ramírez raises his own lambs, butchers them, roasts large lamb cuts in a cylindrical pit wrapped in maguey spines, and then serves smoky, tender lamb barbacoa tacos across from the DMV in Arleta on Sunday mornings only. Order a mix of barbacoa; well-herbed, stewed moronga (blood sausage); and pancita (offal stuffed stomach), and Ramírez’s earthy consomé, a stock made from the lamb drippings that taste like the smoldering essence of the pit.

The story of Mexico City-style al pastor has been written by a small group of indigenous Mihe entrepreneurs from Oaxaca like Fermin Martinez, whose trompos stretch from the San Fernando Valley, to San Bernardino County, to Torrance. Multiple locations serve tender al pastor in a sweet adobo that’s best enjoyed in a plate of tacos, gringas, with melted cheese inside a flour tortillas, or alambres — a stirfry of cheese, peppers, onions, ham, and al pastor that comes with a stack of corn tortillas.

Mazatleco Joshi Coronel’s outstanding carne asada tacos were so popular that within a year of opening he was able to open a brick and mortar taqueria. Coronel worked nearly every restaurant position at Guadalajara Grill, and Mango’s Bar in Mazatlán, then at Culichitown here in LA, before becoming a champion of the chorreada. Coronel uses a thick, sope-style corn tortilla—not a pair of corn tortillas like many others are doing — slathered with asientos (unrefined lard), and melted cheese topped with tender carne asada with fine char, layered with pico de gallo, shredded cabbage, and salsas. Sadly during the pandemic the physical location closed, but Taqueria Mazatlán is still operating as a truck. Check the Instagram for details.

Northern Mexican burritos (a regional style of taco) filled with savory stews were as much an innovation when the Bañuelos family opened Burritos La Palma in Jerez, Zacatecas in 1980 as they were when the first U.S. branch launched in El Monte five years ago. The beef birria burrito drips with simply seasoned meat juices and a light smear of refried beans, whose fragrant flavors permeate the fresh flour tortilla, staining through in a reddish-brown.   

Los Angeles is home to distinctive carne asada traditions from cities in Baja California, Sonora, Sinaloa and others. The newest carne asada, from Culiacán, Sinaloa, features high quality imported Mexican steaks from SuKarne. Tacos de carne asada, cooked over mesquite, come on both flour (tacos de harina) or corn tortillas, dressed with grated cabbage, diced purple onions, mild green and red salsas, and guacamole. Vampiros, corn tortillas crisped on the comal, layered with melted cheese, are topped with steak. Signature pellizcadas, which are sopes covered with melted cheese, and steak, come dressed with the same condiments. These are all beloved menu items at Culiacán taquerías. Along with the best crispy tacos de tripa (chitterlings) in the greater Los Angeles area, this unique taquería is worth the trek to Bloomington. 

Taco Thursdays at chef Wes Avila’s Chinatown window are taking fans back to the days when Guerrilla Tacos founder was on the streets of the Arts District writing his chapter in the story of Alta California cuisine — a modern Mexican-American style of cooking born in Southern California. There’s usually a Baja-style fish taco on the menu, crêpe-thin flautas filled with short ribs, as well as other market-driven specials. But on Thursdays, Avila serves cured tripe finished in hot duck fat; tacos gobernadores, a spicy shrimp and melted cheese taco; and duck confit covered in charred salsa macha on blue corn tortillas. Avila’s tacos are back!

Edras Ochoa is the original northern taquero in LA, the liberator of true carne asada cooked over an open flame here in the U.S. when he opened his cart on 1st and Beaudry back in 2009. The vampiro filled with carne asada is a riff on a traditional quesataco or quesadilla with meat, moistened by a modish garlic aioli to ward off the vampires for an original take on the Sinaloan vampiro. Mexicali has a new location in San Gabriel as well.

The best way to have carnitas at Romulo Acosta’s shrine to Mexican confit-style pork cuts is to skip the onions and cilantro, and squeeze in some juices from a pickled jalapeño, chasing each bite of moist pork with some of the chile. That’s the way it’s done in Salamanca, Guanajuato. For more than half-century, “Momo” has been making artisanal carnitas, a trade he’s passed onto his children, ensuring the best carnitas in the U.S. are here to stay.

Another Oaxacan owner, Rolando Martinez, employs the same strategy as Leo’s, a badass marinade and veteran al pastor taqueros recruited from Mexico’s street food institutions to make his al pastor. The alambres, a hash of sautéed al pastor, peppers, onions, bacon, and Oaxacan cheese are a DIY taco party, and on any given night, Tamix might be the best in LA for their al pastor, too.  

Al pastor’s second wave was ushered in by the Oaxacan brothers behind a Mexico City-style food truck strategically placed on Venice and La Brea, within striking distance of a crossover audience. The blogs were soon filled with tales of mercenary taqueros and massive crimson mounds of sweet marinated pork, symmetrically trimmed off of vertical spits finished with the spectacle of flying chunks of pineapple snagged with Ozzie Smith-like precision onto a tortilla. Leo’s now has a fleet of trucks spreading the gospel of traditional al pastor to all Angelenos. 

Has there ever been a time when chef Jonathan Pérez, and his sister, Ana, weren’t running to their next pop-up location, hyping a constantly evolving menu of modern Mexican-American tacos? Currently, they have a regular gig at Milpa Grille in Boyle Heights, where devoted fans can bite into umami-rich mushroom al pastor tacos, chicken in a sweet white mole and fried chicken tacos with hibiscus slaw, brought back by popular demand. The most talked about item is a hefty pork belly breakfast burrito, swelled by crispy hash browns, and spicy, melted cheese.

LA doesn’t have many restaurants representing the Yucatán peninsula, but the Burgos family has been delivering the (baked) goods since 1971. Order a taco de relleno negro, where shredded turkey is cooking in a black achiote paste contrasted by pickled red onions and a creamy guacamole. Chasing each bite with a whole raw habanero is conventional, but for humanity’s sake, optional.

Maria Ramos is a third-generation Oaxacan barbacoa master with deep roots in the Mercado de Tlacolula in Oaxaca. Her barbacoa enchilada, or pit-roasted lamb in a chile-based marinade, is a smoky, spicy taste of pre-Hispanic tacos de barbacoa. In a city full of Oaxacan restaurants, Gish Bac is the best restaurant in its class for its esteemed barbacoa and traditional Oaxacan cookery. 

Jalisco is the gold standard when it comes to goat birria, followed by respected traditions in Aguascalientes and Zacatecas, especially Nochistlán de Mejia, Zacatecas, just three miles from the Jalisco state line, where the Moreno family originates. Their Boyle Heights outpost serves an austere rendition of braised goat in stock made from the drippings with only a hot chile de árbol salsa, chopped onions, and cilantro as condiments. 

Originally part of a second wave of Baja California-themed carne asada trucks, the Pérez family has added tacos made with northern Mexican guisados: steak and potatoes, scrambled eggs with ham, or chicharrónes in a red salsa. Get the guisados sampler; grab a stack of handmade flour tortillas made by Melva Pérez, and start eating. 

Could a recipe define a city? The secrets of flavorful shrimp are tucked into a corn tortilla then further obscured by the frenetic blistering of hot fat cooled by a frothy tomato salsa and a slice of avocado. Los Angeles hides its treasures in plain sight, under the fleeting shade doled out by rows of iconic fan palms, but on East Olympic Boulevard it’s the taco dorado de camarón from San Juan de Los Lagos that is an indelible image.   

One of the original fish taco stands in southern California opened in 1998 by co-founders Lourdes Toscano and Martin Vásquez, featuring a highly-guarded, secret tempura batter for Ensenada-style fish and shrimp tacos. Toscano, now the sole owner, runs three busy locations alongside her daughters on the strength of the taquería’s golden, crispy fish and shrimp tacos, cooled by pico de gallo, crema, and cabbage. Don’t forget to grab the flavorful chiles güeros dressed with lime and chile powder, and for a taste of the restaurant’s Sonoran roots, order the weekend-only caguamanta, served as stingray soup, stingray tacos, and vichis, an umami-rich stock.

Tacos arabes aren’t possible without the special tortillas, called pan arabe, that are made exclusively in Puebla. Most vendors will just place the roasted pork — cooked on a vertical spit just like al pastor but with a different marinade — on a corn tortilla, which are actually called tacos orientales in Puebla. The Villegas family brings in traditional products from Puebla and prepare their tacos with tender pork and a tangy chipotle salsa.

One of LA’s most celebrated contemporary Mexican seafood stands, created by chef Gilberto Cetina Jr., who also runs the contiguous counter, and Yucatán-cuisine institution, Chichen Itza, located inside the Mercado La Paloma complex. Holbox is a real destination for seafood tacos, like delicately smoked kanpachi tacos; grilled Maine scallop tacos with bright, spicy chile x’catic; or grilled octopus in a briny bed of squid ink sofrito.

It would be easy for a customer from one of LA’s Mexican communities in the taco-know to see wayfaring taquero Walter Soto, a Tijuana native with culichi roots who has worked in Sinaloa, Sonora, and LA, and Julia Silva’s truck as curators of LA taco hits, yet there’s more than meets the eye. El Ruso is the most meta taqueria of the moment, with a menu of tacos about LA taco and tortilla trends. Here Mazatlan-style chorreadas, Tijuanense birria de res, Sonora-influenced carne asada with Sinaloan condiments, and Sonoran burritos wrapped in sobaqueras made by Silva from Baja Californian wheat filled with chile colorado reflect a menu that could only happen in LA. 

Finely chopped steak for carne asada tacos cooked over mesquite, on hand pressed yellow corn tortillas, finished with a mild salsa roja, and creamy guacamole that come wrapped in butcher paper squares are, emblematic of Tijuana nightlife, and the specialty at this 17-year-old taco truck. Named after the Pueblan taqueros, migrants to Tijuana, that created Tijuana-style birria de res, adobada (al pastor), and carne asada, Los Poblanos serves tacos, mulitas, quesadillas stuffed with steak and cheese, and tostadas, with deliciously smoky, well-salted steaks that taste, and smell like a Tijuana street corner at 2am.

The al pastor here is worthy to be among the top vendors in town, but where this food truck sets itself apart from others in its grade is by serving true suadero, or brisket tacos. Tacos de fritanga, or meats fried in a stainless steel disc with a convex center are mostly supplied by Jaliscans, who don’t get into as much offal as their CDMX (Mexico City) counterparts, but one can still find chorizo, hog’s maw, chitterlings, and brisket.

It took a feat of engineering to produce legal and traditional barbacoa inside of a U.S.-based restaurant. Former engineer and barbacoa master Paco Perez has done just that with his own oven design to simulate the conditions in an underground pit. Pit-roasted tender lamb cuts, pancita (offal-stuffed stomach), and lamb skulls are served with corn tortillas, papalo (wild greens), green and red salsas for making tacos, just like back in Texcoco. 

The talented traditional cook Maria Elena Lorenzo and her daughters, a team of professional cooks, have opened their first brick and mortar that’s a pozolería, tamal stand, and a shrine to Afro-Mexican cuisine from La Costa Chica, Guerrero all at once. The guisados: tongue with plantains, aporreadillo (eggs with beef jerky), and mole verde are perfect for making your own tacos, but try the tacos dorados here. The pescadillas (crispy fish tacos) are as good as what you’ll find in Acapulco, and Lorenzo’s spicy beef barbacoa comes suave (corn tortilla) or dorado (deep fried corn tortilla), but its juicy fragrant stands of meat are best enjoyed in a crunchy shell. Call ahead to see which tacos are being served each day.

Roast suckling pig tacos, called puerquito echado in Acaponeta, Nayarit — where taquero David Delfin grew up — are the only thing on the menu at his street cart, located in a dirt lot across from an industrial park in Cudahy. Fill the paper plate with tender, pork pulled from the carcass onto corn tortillas with a piece of golden, crispy skin. The dish is not complete with the traditional salsa de mostaza (mustard salsa), moistening the tacos with sweet, spicy chile guero for a light, tangy finish.

Connie Cossio’s Nayarit-style seafood mecca is known for tacos de marlin, yet, the pescado zarandeado tacos have always been the showstopper at its two locations, where grilled, plump snook imported from Mexico are always cooked to perfection. Grab a corn tortilla, tear slippery chunks of fatty, marinated flesh from the whole, butterflied fish, then add the house dressing of purple onions pickled in lime and Worcestershire sauce. The result is a blackened fish taco that melts in your mouth. Paired with an icy michelada, and you’re transported to a balmy, beach escape to San Blas, Mexcaltitán, or Playa Novillero.

Regional carne asada has disseminated in recent years with provincial styles representing Mexicali, Tijuana, Sonora, and now Mazatlán, where mesquite-grilled steaks for chorreadas and vampiros fill the tangy beach resort air with a the balm of roasted meats. Now serving out of a taco truck, Jose Morales Jr. grills quality steak, greases a thick tortilla with asiento (unrefined pork lard) and melted cheese, then piles on the meat, creamy avocado salsa, pico de gallo, and slices of cucumber to snack on the side.