Los Angeles · a Restaurant Pro list
LA tacos: trucks, stands and lots
Fourteen taco stops, most without a roof.
Los Angeles eats more tacos than any city outside Mexico and most of the best ones come out of a truck, a tent or a parking lot. Al pastor sliced off the trompo on La Brea, shrimp tacos from a truck in Boyle Heights, Sonoran flour tortillas downtown and the birria that started the birria wave. Bring cash and eat standing.
- 1
Mexican · Los Angeles · ★ 4.5 (5,894)
The La Brea gas-station truck where the trompo is the show and the pineapple is thrown, not placed.
Order: Tacos al pastor, pineapple sliced off the top
- 2
Seafood · Los Angeles · ★ 4.6 (1,940)
Raul Ortega's Boyle Heights truck. The fried shrimp taco is the most copied taco in the city and this is the original.
Order: The tacos dorados de camarón, two, with the tomato salsa
- 3
Taco · Los Angeles · ★ 4.2 (820)
Tijuana-style tacos that started as a Westwood stand. The downtown room is where the founders cook.
Order: Adobada on a handmade tortilla; the perrón
- 4
- 5
Mexican · Los Angeles · ★ 4.5 (3,385)
Flour tortillas from Sonoran wheat, pressed by hand, downtown. The tortilla is the argument.
Order: The costilla taco on the flour tortilla; the lorenza
- 6
Mexican · Los Angeles · ★ 4.6 (1,185)
A Highland Park front-yard stand that grew into a storefront. Blue corn, beans, cheese, everything.
Order: The tacos con todo, on the blue corn
- 7
Taco · Los Angeles · ★ 4.5 (439)
The Tijuana-style stand that lit up TikTok, then Echo Park. Handmade tortillas, trompo, and a queue.
Order: Adobada, and the quesotaco
- 8
Taco · Los Angeles · ★ 4.5 (635)
The Puebla style — pork on a pita-like tortilla — from a family that brought it to Olympic Boulevard.
Order: The taco árabe, pork on a flour pita, with the chipotle salsa
- 9
Mexican · Los Angeles · ★ 4.6 (80)
Copper-pot carnitas from the Acosta family, first out of a truck, now in Boyle Heights.
Order: Carnitas, all the cuts mixed, in a taco
- 10
Mexican · Los Angeles · ★ 4.7 (1,053)
Boyle Heights beef birria, the truck that helped start the quesabirria wave the whole country copied.
Order: Quesabirria, with the consomé for dipping
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- 13
Mexican · Los Angeles · ★ 4.6 (246)
El Sereno's heavy-metal taqueria, with a jet-black pastor and the taco names to match.
Order: The black al pastor; the McSatan
- 14
Mexican · Los Angeles · ★ 4.5 (515)
The Atwater Village counter where Anthony Bourdain ate breakfast. Chalkboard menu, no seats worth mentioning.
Order: The breakfast burrito with chorizo, and a potato taco
