The story of Mexico City-style al pastor has been written by a small group of indigenous Mixe entrepreneurs from Oaxaca like Fermin Martinez, whose trompos stretch from El Monte to Riverside serving tender al pastor in a sweet adobo that’s best enjoyed as tacos, gringas — meat with melted cheese inside flour tortillas, or alambres — a stir-fry of cheese, peppers, onions, ham, and al pastor alongside a stack of corn tortillas.

Teddy Vasquez is making good on his dream to put a delicious taco into as many LA hands as possible. His outlet in Venice sits just by the beach in a prime location, and serves up the same delicious birria de res, or simmered beef, tacos with signature bright red consomé as his original Slauson truck.

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.

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. Food 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. 

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 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, you’re transported to a balmy beach in San Blas, Mexcaltitán, or Playa Novillero.

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.  

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 cooked in a black achiote paste contrasted with pickled red onions and creamy guacamole. Chasing each bite with a whole raw habanero is conventional, but for humanity’s sake, it’s optional.

One of LA’s most celebrated contemporary Mexican seafood stands, created by chef Gilberto Cetina Jr., who also runs the next-door Yucatán-cuisine institution Chichen Itza, Holbox is located inside the Mercado La Paloma complex. It’s 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.

One of the latest contemporary Mexican seafood trucks to draw a crowd comes from Oaxacan chef Francisco Aguilar’s bright blue lonchera, which offers sharp ceviches, refreshing seafood cocktails, and an impressive lineup of modern Mexican seafood tacos. Start with fish al pastor, marinated then grilled, and placed on a corn tortilla with grilled pineapple, fried and grilled onions, and guacamole. A pair of tacos is not a bad start, but follow them up with a crispy soft shell crab taco dotted with smoky chintexle aioli, a stinging, delicious Oaxacan chile paste. Dip into the colorful array of homemade salsas like a blistering hot habanero-garlic salsa called no mames, or “you’re f***ing kidding,” to spice up Aguilar’s inventive tacos that evoke the multilayered flavors of Oaxaca. 

There’s much to love about Jennifer Feltham and Teodoro Diaz-Rodriguez’s warm storefront taqueria — its menu of regional Sonoran tacos, the lorenza, caramelo, carne asada tucked into Sonoran wheat flour tortillas, and the chivichanga. The proposition of well-seasoned chicken, melted cheese, roasted Anaheim peppers, and tomatoes wrapped in a tasty flour tortilla, which is then lightly fried, is a simple pleasure worth repeating. 

There’s no room for nostalgia here, but these legendary taquitos aren’t just the original taco in Los Angeles. They might be solely responsible for the current taco craze in America, and they’re delicious. Order deep-fried beef taquitos drowned in a runny avocado salsa oozing with a piquant beefiness thickened with avocado. It’s like being one with the taco universe. Since 1934, the story of the taco north of the Rio Grande begins and ends here. 

Just four years old, Eduardo Arizpe’s Tijuana-style taco stand already counts three successful locations and has become a breakaway hit in the Latino community on social media. The Puebla-born taquero honed his skills working for a couple of years in Tijuana prior to opening in Los Angeles, and is known for well-filled tacos de adobada (al pastor) sliced into meaty cuts. Fans also love the gut-busting quesadillas overflowing with Arizpe’s juicy adobada, and tender chuck steak roasted over mesquite wood that comes wrapped in handmade corn tortillas. It all gets slathered with copious amounts of Tijuana’s signature, creamy guacamole of course.

Taquero Yasmany Mendoza’s popular food truck is one of the big winners in LA’s birria wars, always commanding a long line of taco devotees that show up for goat and beef birria. Mendoza serves the most requested Tijuana-style taco dishes Angeleno’s crave: tacos, dorados (crispy tortilla), mulitas (taco sandwiched in between two tortillas), quesatacos (tacos with melted/fried cheese), vampiros (taco on a toasted corn tortilla), and quesadillas dripping with birria juices. But with birria trucks on practically every corner, it’s the rich, herbal stew with streaks of animal fat in this truck’s birria that keeps them coming back for more. 

From backyard barbacoa in Boyle Heights to Baldwin Park and even a residency in Santa Monica, veteran barbacoa master Petra Zavaleta offers one of the most unique barbacoa styles in LA from her hometown of Tepeaca, Puebla. Since then, Santa Monica and Baldwin Park have closed, but Barba Kush is back with an ongoing operation in Boyle Heights (check Instagram for the location). In addition to tender, flavorful lamb, and barbecued lamb skulls with eyes, tongue, and cheeks attached for making tacos with warming lamb consommé, there’s a rich, iron-flavored lamb menudo called mole de panza enchilada. 

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 steady 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.

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 a 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.

Tacos árabes aren’t possible without the special tortillas, called pan árabe, 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 prepares their tacos with tender pork and a tangy chipotle salsa.

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. 

It would be easy for a customer from one of LA’s Mexican communities to see wayfaring taquero Walter Soto, a Tijuana native with culichi roots who has worked in Sinaloa, Sonora, and LA, and his wife Julia Silva’s truck as curators of LA taco hits, but there’s more than meets the eye. El Ruso is the most meta taqueria in town, 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. 

Over 40 years ago, taquero Javier Morales began his career at Tacos El Memo in the Juan Carrasco neighborhood of Mazatlán. In 2005, he opened LA’s first Mazatlán-style carne asada stand in Compton, and today he continues to turn out satisfying tacos, chorreadas, and vampiros filled with mesquite-grilled chuck steak, covered in a flurry of finely cut cabbage and red onion, plus mild tomato and avocado salsa. Go for the spicy torito, a carne asada taco augmented by roasted chile Anaheim and melted cheese in a large flour tortilla, a meal of complex northern Mexican flavors.

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.

What does Alex Garcia and Elvia Huerta’s taco pop-up, and thrash metal have in common? Take a listen to Slayer’s Repentless and it all makes sense. Alex Garcia is a former restaurant chef turned counterculture taquero whose only compromise in life is that he will keep popular menu items around for his loyal fans, even if he doesn’t like it. Alongside partner Elvia Huerta, Garcia’s Evil Cooks pop-ups promise unconventional tacos like octopus al pastor in a smoky recaudo negro (charred chiles marinade) that’s sliced from a forebodingly dark trompo. The flan dessert taco on a flour tortilla, called La Bruja (witch), is a tribute to Huerta, while the family’s homemade herbed green chorizo tacos take their customers on a tasty journey between heaven and hell.

With poblano roots from Huehuetlan el Grande Puebla and Coatzingo, Puebla — the land where Tijuana taqueros are forged — father-and-son team Don Cuco and Jonathan Rios have crafted one of LA’s best taco spots. Along with family friend Manuel Mendez, who was on to help out at the 2018 opening, this group has managed to excel at tacos, mulitas, and tostadas topped with a tender mix of well-chopped chicken and shoulder clod steaks. It all comes dressed with diced onions and cilantro, mild tomato salsa, and a heaping serving spoon of creamy guacamole on a warmed corn tortilla. The family restaurant now counts three branches along with a pair of street stands (East LA and Boyle Heights).

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. 

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.

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. Try the chile verde-topped burritos for something special.

Stingray soup, tacos, and caguamanta draw in a crowd to Gabriel Morales’ food truck in Fontana. Expect brilliant shades of blue at this busy spot that pulls from Sonoran breakfast culture and highlights images of Mexican politicians and narcos. There’s a lot to take in, from the colorful pop-up canopy and the trailer that scoops hot, buttery stingray soup, to barra fria items (ceviches) and shrimp, tuna fin, and surimi that is served in bowls with corn tortillas so customers can make their own tacos de caguamanta. 

It’s well worth the drive to Rialto for one the most exciting Mexican seafood dining experiences that showcases pescado zarandeado estilo Playa Los Corchos, a locals-only beach in Nayarit with its own cooking traditions. Chef Anthony Placencia, working alongside his Nayarit-born mother, Maria Carrillo, and other family members, has recreated a one-of-a-kind tacos de pescado zarandeado recipe served on folding tables in the family’s backyard. Plascencia’s pescado zarandeado is marinated in an adobo and then cooked tender, revealing the natural flavors of mesquite-grilled sea bream, snook, or Barramundi. The package includes tacos de frijól, an assortment of salsas, handmade corn tortillas — plus sliced red onion, cucumber, and limes to garnish the tacos. Order pescado zarandeado “estilo Los Corchos” for an add-on of octopus and shrimp zarandeado which gives the meal a true taste of Playa Los Corchos.