The signature tacos: how to take the popular dish of Mexico to the limit

Fresh tuna marinated in sesame oil, with peanut sauce, morita chili dressing with chipotle, caramelized onion and avocado inside a blue corn tortilla.

A surprising bite.

"Everything well balanced goes into a tortilla," says Luis Durán, the owner and creator of Chetito, a taco restaurant, who decided to give free rein to his imagination and extend the limits of the taco.

Mexico's most popular dish follows a simple formula: a protein-filled tortilla dressed with salsa.

That simplicity can be a failure if it is not done well, but if it is done well it is unique and glorious.

The taco universe has endless possibilities and there is a movement of young Mexican chefs determined to experiment.

"Many times we believe that bread is the only one that supports sweet, salty, and bittersweet, and no, the tortilla is a product that goes well with everything," says Durán, who in 2015 decided to take off his tie and leave his profession as a lawyer to dedicate himself to the hospitality industry.

He had contacts with Argentine restaurateurs, so he seemed destined to have a restaurant with cuts of meat, salads and empanadas.

That did not convince him, but he had his kitchen full of steaks and Argentine chorizo, and he thought about adding some dough to the equation, he baked breads, made pizza and learned to make tortillas.

One night he was hungry and he followed his instinct: "I took one of the tortillas we had made and put flank steak, caramelized onion and blue cheese on it, it was great."

Duran had invented his first cue.

Interior of the Chetito taqueria located in the Cuauhtémoc neighborhood. Nadya Murillo

"I tried to make tacos with a

, that are creative, that are rich and use the best ingredients, but without breaking their essence."

Now it has a menu with more than twenty tacos, cocktails and wines.

Chetito, with two branches, one in the Cuauhtémoc neighborhood and the other in Roma, was consolidated and the chistorra did not disappear, only now it is eaten inside a tortilla.

Also in Roma is Tizne Tacomotora, a taco restaurant that honors the times in which we live.

Pilar García and Jorge Linares are two Chilangos who left culinary school and wanted to open a

Texas-style

,

and ribs — and they wanted to make it travel, especially on a tricycle like the ones that were so fashionable in Brazil, but they were fans of Korean food.

That combination became a reality in his first taco:

with mashed garlic confit, pickled black radish, sliced ​​serrano chili, and tortilla ash.

The traveling didn't happen, they settled down with their smoker and let their imaginations run wild.

“At this point I think it is very complicated that you can do something that has nothing to do with abroad”, Linares is right, we live in a hyper globalized world, and even so, that taco resulting from different culinary influences is still local.

"We do everything with Mexican ingredients," says García, and that's right, many of his preparations are made with classic ingredients of Mexican cuisine such as morita chili, piloncillo, green tomato and of course blue corn tortillas.

"We saw the tortilla, more than a vehicle, as a dish in itself," said Linares, who is happy with the revaluation of corn and being able to have a tortilla that is so good that it could be eaten on its own.

However, he and García, his partner and his partner, believe that "it is unfair that not everyone has access to good tortillas," despite living in a country where corn is the main food.

Since the 1990s, the tortilla has been industrialized and has lost flavor, in a nutshell.

That tortilla that inflated when you put it on the griddle disappeared and was replaced by a white, dry and slightly fluffy tortilla.

It's easy to forget until you come across such a delicious tortilla again.

A cue from Tizne Tacomotora, in the Roma neighborhood. Nadya Murillo

taco trend

, so to speak, includes these tortillas made with endemic corn and yes, that's why they tend to be a bit more expensive.

And the diner does not always understand why: "I can say: 'Hey, I have a taco with a corn tortilla, that's such a badass,' and they find it expensive, but the problem with tacos is that everything is due to protein." .

Linares' journey to what he calls the

has led him to reflect on this and various other aspects, and each person who cooks together with García thinks only of offering a delicious and quality taco: "We have always seen Tizne as a tribute to cleats, that concept is easy because you're not trying to compete or improve, you're just doing a reinterpretation."

Reinterpreting the taco can be risky, but there are always palates in search of new flavors, a few steps from Tizne is Cariñito, a place where they constantly play with what goes inside the tortilla.

Cariñito looks like a traditional taqueria, a little white mosaic window with red letters where there are a couple of taqueros and a sign offering five tacos, until you see that there are natural wines.

“Tacos and wines, why not?” asks David Verástegui, co-founder of the site with Joaquín de la Torre, smiling, with his glass full of Mexican orange wine.

His taco menu has an obvious Southeast Asian influence — mint, hoisin sauce, sriracha, tamarind or soy sauce — and is as casual as his customers, of various ages and backgrounds, and his waiters in flower shirts.

The pandemic changed the face of Cariñito, who was going to simulate a sushi bar, but open spaces became a necessity and the taqueria adapted and went out into the street: there are no chairs here, you eat standing up between planters and They serve the tacos in corn husks.

“Everything has revolved around creating a community, being urban with good food, with high-quality ingredients, rich and fresh, and with freshly made corn tortillas.”

The versatility of Cariñito is also in its comales and cazuelas, that small taquería sometimes works as a laboratory: "We do

every weekend", in these events there can be baristas, wine producers, beer creators or chefs who they must invent two different tacos, without any rules.

There have been those who have decided to use oysters, mushrooms, lamb or whatever.

At Cariñito, guest chefs can take the original taco concept to the limit.

Eggplant taco from the Cariñito taqueria. Nadya Murillo

Going back to Linares' words, there is a

full of food that can be put inside a tortilla, only, as Durán mentioned, there must be "balance" in the flavors and above all, remember that cooking is about taking risks "why? what not?”, as Verástegui said.

There will always be a purist who will say that the real taco is al pastor, without remembering that it is an adaptation of a

brought by Arab immigrants;

or that burritos are gringos, even though they were created in northern Mexico.

Taquero purism does not exist because Mexicans in general eat tacos every day, whoever says no is lying, the taco is the snack, the accompaniment to another dish, it is breakfast, lunch or dinner, it is the end of a drinking night.

And we all invent tacos, we fill the tortilla with what we have at hand, only there are those who do it better, much better.