Dining Out: Five London Tacos I've Known and Loved

For when you want to eat cheaply, messily and happily.

Hello friends, this is a bi-weekly paid post and it is also my first post in general in a little while – reviews aren’t going to be weekly any more for a few reasons, but I will of course still be providing paid subs with new stuff every fortnight. As such, this week I am talking tacos.

For a very long time it was almost a cliché to say that Mexican food in London was shit, and of course by American standards (which for some reason tend to be the standards by which this particular thing is measured) it’s still nowhere near as good, largely because the diasporic community here is smaller. But over the past few years, I guess due to the internet’s narrowing of food landscapes across geography (places in New York feel like places in London feel like places in Paris etc. etc.), better tacos have found there way to these shores by hook or by crook. As you know, I’m not in the business of declaring things I personally like the city’s greatest – Topjaw this is not, lol – but here are five specific tacos that I really like, and that I am always excited to eat, even if London is not quite Mexico City or San Francisco just yet.

Beef Suadero at La Chingada, Surrey Quays

I love La Chingada, which I feel is the OG “actually good” London taco place – I remember seeking out the original branch in Surrey Quays (which is now much bigger than it used to be) many years ago. Now, they also have one in Bermondsey and one in Euston too. These days, transformed from a little counter place, La Chingada is a full blown restaurant where the margaritas are massive and strong enough to knock a rugby player out, there’s a big, varied selection of tacos, and if you go on a Tuesday, you can get four for the price of two. Everything there is pretty good, but every time I go, the standout is the Suadero, or confit beef. The best way I can describe it is “luscious” – fat clings to every sinew, the meat is soft with a rich, deep flavour, and it all soaks beautifully into a corn tortilla. Still elite after all these years.