Every ranking of the best tacos in Los Angeles has the same flaw: it puts a fried shrimp taco, a spit-carved pork taco and a stewed beef taco in the same list and asks which is better, which is a bit like ranking a sandwich against a soup. The useful version organises by style, because in this city each style has its own neighbourhood, its own operating hours and its own correct way to order. Twelve styles is a more honest number than twelve restaurants.
Each of these styles peaks at a different hour and in a different part of the city. Ask Karpo which one is being made well near you tonight.
Al pastor, the one to judge a city by
Marinated pork stacked on a vertical spit, carved to order, with a slice of pineapple flicked off the top. It is the most technically demanding style on this list and the fastest way to assess an operation — if there is no trompo turning, the pastor is being cooked on a flat top and will be adequate rather than good. The best-known operator in this city runs more than a dozen trucks, all of them carving from a spit, and it is a genuine late-night institution.
Order two, eat them standing at the truck, and do not put them in a bag to take home. Pastor loses more in ten minutes than any other taco.
Dorados de camarón, the outlier
A shrimp taco folded into a corn tortilla and fried until golden, topped with thick avocado slices and a red salsa. It comes out of Boyle Heights and the operation that popularised it is widely credited with kicking off the birria-and-seafood era of Los Angeles taco culture. It is unlike anything else on this list — crisp, rich, and worth crossing the city for on its own.
These are a daytime item. The operations that make them well run lunch hours and finish in the afternoon, which catches out people who assume all good tacos in this city are a night-time product.
Birria, carnitas and the braised styles
Birria — slow-stewed goat or beef, served with a cup of consommé for dipping — went from a regional specialty to a national phenomenon largely from Los Angeles, and the quality here ranges from exceptional to entirely cynical. The tell is whether the consommé tastes like the meat or like a stock cube.
Carnitas is the other great braised style, and the Michoacán-style operations in this city that cook pork in copper pots for hours are doing something genuinely rare outside Mexico. Ask for a mix rather than a single cut; the interest is in the contrast between the soft interior and the crisped edges.
Guisados, Tijuana-style and Sonoran
Guisados means stews: braised meats and vegetables in a dozen varieties, spooned onto handmade tortillas. It is the most home-cooking-adjacent style here and the best option for anyone who does not eat meat, because the vegetarian guisados are treated as dishes rather than as substitutions.
Tijuana-style is about the carne asada — thin, heavily charred, chopped fine, served with grilled onion and a heavy hand with the salsa. Sonoran is the flour tortilla tradition from the north, made fresh, and it is a completely different eating experience to a corn tortilla taco. Both have serious representatives in this city.
The truck styles and the seafood styles
The taco truck circuit that fires up around ten at night across East LA, Boyle Heights, South LA and eastern Hollywood is its own category, and it is where the majority of the best tacos in this city are actually eaten. Suadero, tripas, cabeza and lengua are the truck specialities, and a truck that does the offal cuts well is signalling a level of skill that a chicken-and-asada-only operation is not.
Seafood is the last great cluster — the mariscos operations across the east side and the South Bay, serving fried fish, octopus, ceviche tostadas and smoked marlin. These are daytime and weekend businesses and they are the most underrated part of this city's taco landscape.
The tortilla question
The single biggest quality variable across all of these styles is the tortilla, and it is the one people pay least attention to. A handmade corn tortilla pressed and griddled to order is a different food to one pulled from a bag and warmed, and the operations that make their own — several of the guisados and carnitas places do — are announcing something about the whole kitchen.
The second tell is whether the tortilla is doubled. A doubled tortilla is not a cost-saving measure; it is structural, and any style with a wet filling needs it. A single tortilla under a juicy suadero taco means someone is not paying attention.
How to order at any of them
Two of one thing and one of another. The pair tells you what the kitchen is good at; the single is the experiment. Take both salsas and try them separately rather than mixing, because the salsa is the signature and it varies more between operators than the meat does. And eat standing up, immediately, at the counter — every taco on this list degrades within minutes of being made.
The last thing worth saying is that the difference between the twelfth-best taco in this city and the best is much smaller than the difference between any of them and a taco somewhere else. Los Angeles is the best taco city outside Mexico and the correct response to that is not to optimise your way to a single ranked winner but to eat across the styles until you find the two or three you actually love.
Tags: #LosAngeles #Tacos #BestTacosLA #AlPastor #Birria #Carnitas #Guisados #Mariscos #BoyleHeights #EastLA #LAEats #SoCal #TacoTrucks
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Ask Karpo first
Ask Karpo which taco spots near you in Los Angeles are open now, what style they specialise in, and how late they run.
