The menu in NYC will match the CDMX authentic’s.
Picture: Luis Antonio Rojas/The New York Occasions/Redux
Even individuals who aren’t acquainted with Mexico Metropolis’s meals scene seemingly find out about El Califa de León, owing to the 60-year-old establishment’s popularity as the primary taqueria to be awarded a Michelin star. After receiving the distinction in 2024, it grew to become clear to third-generation proprietor José Andrés Hernández Elizalde and his father, Mario Hernández, that it was time to consider opening outdoors of its hometown. However the place to go? That yr, the restaurant partnered with Tacombi on a ten-week pop-up tour to New York, Chicago, Miami, and Washington, D.C., that bought over 180,000 tacos nationwide; New York was “simply” probably the most enthusiastic market and inadvertently received the bid to deal with the taqueria’s growth.
As a substitute of tapping hospitality behemoths or venture-capital corporations to fund and oversee the growth, they turned to household and associates, who in flip furnished the majority of the monetary backing wanted for the growth. “This has been a household enterprise endlessly,” Hernández Elizalde says. It’s why his accomplice main the expansion is Rodrigo Rivera, who constructed a profitable profession in tourism, airways, and restaurant tech in Toronto and, extra crucially, has been finest associates with Hernández Elizalde because the eleventh grade.
The restaurant is planning to open its new Flatiron location on the finish of August. Regardless of the brand new location, the method is identical because it’s ever been: the identical concise menu of tacos (prime rib eye, tenderloin, pork chop, and New York strip), positioned in tortillas made with masa from Bushwick’s Sobre Masa and designed to be doused in do-it-yourself rojo or verde salsa. “We’re not adapting the taco to the U.S. market — we’re bringing the true factor,” Hernández Elizalde says. “New Yorkers and Individuals have gotten used to a taco that’s been tailored to them, however each time they exit in Mexico, they’re like, Why did all these tacos style that good down there?”
There are some new additions, together with the usage of USDA Prime-graded beef within the tenderloin taco, a vegetarian choice made with roasted poblano peppers and huitlacoche, and an alluring “MARGARITA” signal that looms above a bar to sign a strong collection of mezcal, tequila, and beer. The inside additionally feels befitting of a second chapter. Whereas the unique taco stand is lower than 100 sq. ft, the Flatiron location seats as much as 60 and features a table-service part, a seated taco counter, and standing room for many who need a eating expertise most just like what they’d discover in Mexico Metropolis. The household partnered with associates at CDMX-based inside agency MERO MX, which outfitted the house with shiny, blood-red subway tiles in addition to accordion-style doorways on the entrance and an open-air grill that provides prospects a plancha-to-plate view of their orders.
“We’re right here to set the usual, not just for one of the best tacos in New York, however within the U.S.,” says Hernández Elizalde, who will relocate his household to New York Metropolis early subsequent yr to supervise the taqueria’s continued American growth, which he hopes will embody no less than a number of extra places yr. “New Yorkers can have precisely the identical taco as we put together in Mexico,” he says, “however I wish to assume it’s going to be a bit of bit higher due to the standard of the meat we will serve right here.”
EAT LIKE THE EXPERTS.
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