13 Tacos You Must Try in San Diego

Americans often have our own regional cuisine preferences—for instance, I tend to go for Carolina-style whole hog barbecue over Texas brisket (but certainly wouldn’t kick a Kansas City burnt end out of bed, either). So why is it when it comes to Mexican food, we’re occasionally guilty of lumping the entire country’s cuisine under one broad brush?

There’s far more to Mexican cuisine than tamales, pozole, and chilaquiles—Oaxaca is as famous for its seven moles as Baja California is for the Ensenada-style fish taco. And when it comes to Sonora, the northwestern Mexican state bordering Arizona and New Mexico features plenty of cattle ranches and wheat fields, giving the region its signature ranchero grilling culture and paper-thin flour tortillas. San Diego is about to get a taste of the fire-grilled flavors, when TacoNora opens in Pacific Beach on Saturday, March 7.

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Renata Vázquez, founder of Tyche Food & Beverage Consulting and cofounder of TacoNora, says it’s the first location for the family-owned brand (although the ownership group operates four other taquerías in Sonora under a different name), and they are already actively looking to open more locations in North County and Arizona. But Pacific Beach felt like a good place to start for the grill-forward, fast-casual concept. 

“Guests start by choosing their protein,” she explains, pointing to options like asada, pork belly, chicken made with a house seasoning mix, trompo-style ribeye or sirloin steak, or grilled Anaheim chiles. Then they can choose if they want it as a regular taco, lorenza (an open-faced, crispy taco), caramelo (a Sonoran specialty where carne asada and melted cheese are sandwiched between two crispy flour tortillas), costra (a “crust” of caramelized cheese wrapped around the chosen filling), a Sonoran-style burrito, or TacoNora’s signature taco pizza. 

“Each format highlights the tortilla and the grill differently, but the meat remains the focus,” Vázquez explains.

TacoNora will also offer housemade guacamole, beans slow-cooked with pork fat and red chile, and a salsa bar with 10 different housemade salsas. The entire experience is meant to be interactive, customizable, and something new, but still unfussy. “We wanted to create a concept where the quality of the meat speaks first, the tortilla supports it, and everything else enhances it—without overcomplicating the experience,” she says. “Sonoran food deserves a voice in San Diego.”

TacoNora opens Saturday, March 7 at 956 Garnet Avenue.

San Diego Restaurant News & Food Events

Tip Top Meats Is Back In Biz

Tip Top Meats, the iconic European deli and market that closed in 2024, officially soft re-opened at 6118 Paseo Del Norte in Carlsbad, bringing back its famous meats and Old World sundries. While the team and family may have decades of experience under their belts, it’s still a new era, so give ‘em some grace during the soft opening as they get their feet (and meat) under them once more. Open 7 a.m. to 8 p.m. daily. 

Beth’s Bites

• ‘Tis the season for Irish whiskey. The Library at Fairmont Grand Del Mar is certainly one of the toniest spots in town to imbibe some high-end options. On March 10 at 6 p.m., the speakeasy will host a guided tasting of Jameson, Redbreast, and Midleton whiskeys, explaining the nuances and history of the spirit. (And yes, you should practice your pronunciation of “Sláinte!” ahead of time.)
• As far as chef collabs go, Rancho Valencia Resort & Spa’s Chef Series dinners are some of the best of the best. On Thursday, March 19, chef Roberto Alcocer of Michelin-starred Valle in Oceanside is heading to the culinary garden for a four-course prix fixe meal. Before dinner, guests will enjoy a welcome hour starting at 6 p.m., where they can sip on signature Valle cocktails and curated wine offerings. 
• Liberty Public Market is turning double-digits this March, and yes, that makes me feel a little old. But the Point Loma market has plenty of events for the young at heart lined up for the 10th anniversary weekend, including tons of live music, beer tastings, food specials, and more. It all takes off March 21 and 22, so strap on your party shoes and boogie on down to grab a bite or two for the big 1-0.

Listen Now: The Latest in San Diego’s Food and Drink Scene

Have breaking news, exciting scoops, or great stories about new San Diego restaurants or the city’s food scene? Send your pitches to [email protected].

Tacos are San Diego’s lingua franca. The invention of food wrapped in corn tortillas is ballparked at 1000 to 500 BC. The word probably comes from the Nahuatl “tlahco”—meaning “half” or “in the middle”—a food meant to be folded and carried. Portable foods always have a way of sticking around.

San Diego was part of Mexico until the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo in 1848, so tacos didn’t arrive; they remained. After the treaty, they receded into the kitchens of families who stayed behind.

By the early 1900s, US tacos had reached a sad state—mostly ground beef, cheddar cheese, and iceberg lettuce, because Mexican staples like cotija, cilantro, chiles, and freshly pressed tortillas weren’t in grocery stores. In San Diego, that started to change around 1930 in the abode of Petra and Natividad Estudillo, who lived on Logan Avenue in Barrio Logan, the heart of San Diego’s Chicano culture (it’s where many refugees from the Mexican Revolution settled). There, the couple created a teeny tienda, slinging homemade tortillas.

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Behind the Estudillos’ counter, reportedly, you could see their living room, lined with furniture and tubs of fresh tortillas. You could tell sales (and tacos) were on the rise, because their décor got increasingly nicer. The couple opened Las Cuatro Milpas next door in 1933. It was the first Mexican restaurant in the city, a taco chapel for over 90 years. Around the same era, Ralph Pesquiera Sr. started pressing tortillas with his parents on India and Grape streets, later serving smaller, corn tortilla versions of flautas for defense workers during WWII. Credited with coining the term “taquito,” he opened El Indio in 1940.

The Bracero Program (1942–64) greatly contributed to taco culture, bringing over four million Mexican men to the US as guest workers, many in San Diego. The kitchens at bracero camps were filled with beans, tortillas, and chiles. The art of making fresh masa started to proliferate, and local grocery stores stocked dried chiles, salsas, and masa harina for their new client base.

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San Diego’s taco culture quantum-leapt in 1964, when Roberto and Dolores Robledo, who’d previously owned a Golden Hill restaurant called La Lomita, opened a tortilla factory in San Ysidro. They quickly added a walk-up and drive-through window and called it Roberto’s—the city’s first “modern” taco shop and eventual legend. Two years earlier, up the road in Downey, Glen Bell had launched Taco Bell; by the time he sold it to PepsiCo in 1978, every American grocery store was selling “taco kits” with pre-fried shells, seasoning packets, and jars of salsa. Taco night became a middle-class ritual.

Surfers also deserve a taco nod. In 1983, SDSU student Ralph Rubio finally made good on the recipe gifted to him by a taquero on a San Felipe beach; he opened Rubio’s on Mission Bay Drive, launching the Baja fish taco into the national imagination (Rubio’s IPO hit NASDAQ in 1999).

Two government policies also helped further taco enlightenment. In 1986, the Immigration Reform and Control Act (IRCA) legalized about 2.7 million immigrants, many in SoCal. Green cards and work permits meant access to leases, loans, and licenses. With that stability came confidence—and a wave of Mexican-owned small businesses. The late 1980s and ’90s saw the rise of family-run icons like Lolita’s, Rigoberto’s, and Cotixan. It’s no coincidence that two of San Diego’s proudest food inventions—the California burrito and carne asada fries (often credited to Lolita’s circa the late ’90s)—came onto the scene during this period.

This last point is an unsubstantiated connecting of dots. But Mexico’s a large country full of endless regional taco ideas (Oaxacan cheese, Sinaloan seafood, Texcoco barbacoa). And the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA), signed in 1992, was probably what sprung that deep well of taco ideas. Corporations opened massive operations in border cities like Tijuana, drawing thousands of workers and tacos from every nook.

Which brings us to now. There are 1,700-ish taco shops across the county, and here’s the list of our favorites.

San Diego’s Best Tacos

Gobernador Taco at Mariscos Mi Gusto Es

Chollas Creek

Located in the massive parking lot by an event center and a cannabis dispensary, Mi Gusto Es may just set the bar for the best gobernador (a Sinaloan-style shrimp taco with melted cheese and a flour tortilla—a wonderful thing). Loaded with sautéed peppers, it costs three bucks. Get the spicy shrimp. Always spicy.

Taco de Maciza at De Cabeza El Único

Chula Vista

Listen—my initial reaction was just like yours. “A new taco shop in San Diego? Groundbreaking.” But then I saw the name. It’s not just any taco shop—Tacos El Franc is coming to National City.

In a land of iconic taquerias, Tacos El Franc is legendary. The taco shop became a Tijuana institution even before opening its first brick-and-mortar in 1996, when Javier Valadez began slinging tacos from a small cart and quickly earned a cult following.

It’s been featured on Netflix’s Taco Chronicles, and the tacos have been dubbed the best in the world by TikTok and people with extremely good taste (me). Tijuana locals and hungry Americans crowd the curbside eatery from the minute it opens until closing, and if you’ve ever had the chance to taste one of the mouthwateringly tender cabeza tacos or overstuffed quesadillas con carne, you’ll understand why. 

Now you won’t need a passport to crush their carne asada. Tacos El Franc will open their first location in the US at the Westfield Plaza Bonita mall this summer, replacing Funky Fries & Burgers at 3030 Plaza Bonita Road, Suite No. 1108. Convincing the taqueria’s owners to enter the US market took 20 years, admits managing partner Roberto “Robe” Kelly.

“[Tacos El Franc] is, essentially, the highest grossing taqueria in Baja,” Kelly explains. “They didn’t really need the US market.” But the time has finally come, and he says once they open their doors, that will only be the beginning of an “aggressive expansion,” going wherever people have “an appetite for tacos.” 

“One of our primary goals is to bring the exact flavor that you can have when you cross the border,” he adds. “We’re going to make it easier and bring it to them.”

When Tacos El Franc opens in June or July of 2024, I invite brave readers to join me in a taco-eating contest. No matter what, we all win.

Beth’s Bites

More National City news! Friends of Friends is almost open on 8th Street, with promises of coffee, booze, music, and of course, friendship. 

If one more coffee shop launches in North Park, I’m going to lose my mind. Other neighborhoods need caffeine, too! Please?

Rise Biscuits is opening (eventually) near SDSU, but where are the best biscuits in San Diego in the meantime? Email me at [email protected] with your recs.

Pure Project’s eighth anniversary party is tomorrow at their Miramar Brewery & Taproom. I’ll be there, so if you see me, say hi!

City Tacos, chess

From this moment on, refer to 4896 Voltaire—the 10,000-square-foot plot of land across from the original OB Noodle House and Mike Hess Brewing—as OB Playground. Set to open July 1st, the playground will be anchored by popular local taco shop City Tacos and house a craft coffee cart, a flower shop, and all the happenings of an old-school, down-home hangout.

North Parkers know City Tacos. They’re the ones responsible for the groovy 80s jams you hear at the intersection of 30th and University. It’s been that way since owner Gerry Torres started the chain back in 2014. Torres was born in Mexico City but spent his early adulthood bouncing between home, San Diego, Miami, and Hawaii, before making his way back just north of the border. “San Diego is a bicultural community,” says Torres, who’s been in the service industry for 35 years. “We have Mexico next door, so we get the best of both worlds. I’ve raised my family here, it’s my home.”

City Tacos, exterior

Torres developed a deep appreciation for San Diego’s illustrious taco shop culture, but he found himself craving bites with a bit more character, more from-scratchness, and constantly evolving. “When we create something we seek to elevate it,” says Torres. “You have to make your own tortillas. That’s your base.” His tacos range from slow cooked carnitas topped with crispy chicharron, to May’s taco of the month: the Aztec cauliflower taco, with achiote-rubbed cauliflower sitting atop a creamy pineapple tepache guacamole spread, wrapped in a flour tortilla.

After success in North Park, they’ve expanded to the ballpark, Pacific Beach, Sorrento Valley, and as far north as the Village at USC. Since his taco repute is now solid, Torres is challenging himself with his eighth concept to reimagine the environment and space. “I realized people want something more,” he says. “Sometimes they want to bring their pets along, or maybe they want to be in a cozy, inviting environment.”

City Tacos, tarps

Torres is cueing the cozy (and nostalgia) by retrofitting OB Playground with all you’d expect to see at a family reunion held in your uncle’s backyard: cornhole, foosball, and mammoth-sized versions of Jenga, Connect Four, and chess. A draft beer list featuring a rotating, San Diego-based lineup. He outfitted it for all-weather with fire pits, space heaters, and sail shading. He’s even getting into gardening.

“I intend to have manicured gardens and flowers around the property to give the sense of tranquility and peace,” he says. “If you’re out walking with the kids and have your dog and a stroller, you can sit down for a bit and have a good time.”

City Tacos, coffee truck

Although not prepared to announce the specific vendors heading the coffee cart and flower shop, Torres alludes to both businesses being local, one of which you may already be familiar with.

Torres says craft fairs, themed food truck nights, and involvement with local OBecians are all on his radar.

“It’s always been about growing with the community and giving back,” he says.

Have breaking-news, exciting scoops, or great stories about San Diego’s food scene? Send your pitches to [email protected].

Photo Credit: Andrew Reiner

I stumbled into my room with my head spinning and ripped off my crimson-oil-stained shirt before crawling between the white sheets, as crisp and chilled as the lettuce in a steakhouse salad. I planned this trip to Guadalajara to combat a burned-out brain on two fronts: with the cool luxury of a hotel pool and by gorging myself on flame-red bowls of birria, the regional specialty of stewed meat prepared with tomato and pepper broth.

The former brought me to Tequila, an hour from Guadalajara, where I found Casa Salles, a pristine boutique hotel with its own Tequila factory. I swiftly located the latter across town at Doña Chuy, situated on a triangle of cement pressed up against the highway.

As the trend of birria swept through the U.S. over the last few years, even the best versions left me wistfully nostalgic for some ideal of birria stuck in the back of my brain, one that bowled me over with flavor and cured even the worst of hangovers. I couldn’t pinpoint the version I remembered, but, like Justice Potter Stewart on obscenity, I knew I would recognize it when I saw it. And I knew for sure what it wasn’t: bland beef wrapped in factory-made tortillas and drowned in cheese.

A catch-all term for “French dip but tacos,” as a friend once heard it described. Soup bowls filled with the same kinds of shortcuts and blandness that, writ large, I blamed for my burnout. I doubted that a one-week vacation could completely restore my verve, but it seemed plenty of time to find the most comforting consomé.

Photo Credit: Andrew Reiner

As the belching trucks rumbling by drowned out the plasticky crinkle of the checked tablecloth, my birria de chivo arrived, brick-red and stocked with goat, the tender ropes of meat just barely clinging to each other in a sea of tomato broth. My server slid toward me a plastic Tupperware filled with a jumble of metal silverware and bowls of chopped cilantro and onion. Despite a long list of drinks on the overhead sign, they only actually stocked glass bottles of Coke.

But they more than made up for the variety in salsas: three selections on the table showed their freshness in crisp colors, each cresting the top of a deli quart container. When I went to use one, my server stopped me, handing me a plastic water bottle containing a fire-engine red glop studded with pepper seeds instead. “This one for birria,” he said.

I slurped the spicy broth with a homemade tortilla in one hand, a napkin to blot the sweat from my forehead in the other. Halfway through, I looked up, and a woman across from me asked what she should order. I grinned and recommended the birria de chivo so fervently that I knocked a significant amount onto my shirt. I blotted it a bit, mopped up the last of the soup, and strolled back to the hotel, drunk on goat broth and success.

Two days in, I had found the birria of my dreams and considered just leaning into the other half of the trip—laying on hotel beds and pool deck lounge chairs—for the next week.

Photo Credit: Andrew Reiner

But a tiny, birria-colored-devil standing on my shoulder asked, “What if there’s even better birria?” I soldiered on to Guadalajara to scour the cityscape for soup that lived up to Doña Chuy’s. The decked-out tourist-favorite Birriería Las Nueve Esquinas failed, but I got to walk below the city at the brand new El Museo de Sitio del Puente de las Damas nearby, featuring a recently uncovered 18th-century bridge.

Fueled by a stop at Cantina La Fuente, where ice-cold Victoria beer chills in open-topped coolers stacked with bricks of ice the size of microwaves, my quest resumed. I struck vermillion goat gold at La Birria de Oro. Inside the pale salmon walls, bowls came to the table brimming with meat, stacked with chopped onion, whose sharpness woke up my sleepy taste buds.

The meat, chopped small here, felt like biting into Gushers, only instead of sickly sweet ‘90s candy juice, it released flavor-packed broth. I worked my way through the bowl and the stack of freshly made tortillas, then ordered a jericalla for dessert, as if the smooth burnt custard might prolong the joy of a good birria through proximity.

Photo Credit: Andrew Reiner

The next day, a friend desperately in need of the dish’s reviving properties brought me to Birriería El Chololo, which serves birria tatemada—oven-roasted, with the consomé served on the side. The crispy charred edges of meat and drinkable bowl of broth soothed her searing hangover and showed me a totally different style of birria.

I came to Guadalajara to find the ideal birria, the one that showed me what all the versions at home failed to do, and instead, I found three very different dishes and myself confused.

I headed for the hills. Specifically, to take a class with Maru Toledo, the cooking instructor, culinary researcher, and author who spent the last two decades documenting the food of Jalisco. Over mole made from charred tortillas and pebbly sun-dried tostadas raspadas, I asked my burning question: what is the original, the ideal, the peak of birria?

Photo Credit: Andrew Reiner

Birria can be anything, Toledo explained. The Spanish utilized the lush river valley in nearby Ameca for raising cattle, hiring local men to herd the animals and paying them with a feast featuring the local “agave wine,” (now better known as Tequila) and a slaughtered calf. They rubbed the veal with chile paste, describing the method as “birriaba” meaning smeared, as one might with mud, and cooked it buried underground.

Soon, they found it worked well on the superfluous male goats from the dairy industry in nearby Zacatecas, and local small game and poultry. Any type of meat, cooked in any number of fashions, could be birria, so long as it was smeared with that adobo before cooking.

Back in the city, I embraced Toledo’s wisdom and sampled a creative clam birria at trendy seafood spot La Panga del Impostor. After, I wandered to the Hospicio Cabañas, where a free tour guide explained that perhaps the reason José Clemente Orozco could cover the walls and ceilings of the one-time orphanage with such impressive works of art with only one hand, and in just 11 months, involved cocaine.

I came away inspired. My burnout, I concluded, came not from a lack of ideas, but from a lack of the proper drugs. I’m too old to adopt a new addiction to a powerful and pricey stimulant, but that doesn’t matter. As I learned this week, birria can be anything.