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Bill Addison’s list of best tacos in L.A.

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Where there is a taco conversation in Los Angeles, there is debate. Or, as is often the case, less polite exchanges than the word “debate” can encompass.

To live in Los Angeles, and invest in its food culture, is to have opinions about tacos. None of us will ever completely agree. And yet, after months of eating so many tacos for this project, I felt pulled to name-check some of my favorites.

Get to know Los Angeles through the tacos that bring it to life. From restaurants to trucks to carts and more, here’s 101 of the city’s best.

Here are a few things to know: I think of this roster as a starting point, among the 101 luminaries we selected as a group, by which to survey Southern California’s taco culture geographically and stylistically. Some places uphold regional Mexican traditions, others take creative chances, charting flavors that more directly express our corner of the world. Many top-tier tacos can require some final customer assembly; here I thought mostly about tacos that arrive in your hand feeling like complete packages. With one incredible exception in the San Fernando Valley, I sidestepped obscurer pop-ups. (You’ll find plenty of those in the main guide.)

Let me also say: Sonoratown has year after year been the taqueria that ranks highest on the 101 Best Restaurants in the Los Angeles guide I write annually. I am technically most obsessed with Sonoratown’s burritos and chivichangas, so feel free to consider Teodoro Díaz Rodriguez Jr. and Jennifer Feltham’s growing empire as part of this group.

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My colleagues would readily tell you that each of our personal lists would look different. Here are my critic’s picks.

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Tacos at Bandito Taqueria.
(Andrea D’Agosto / For The Times)

Bandito Taqueria

Santa Ana Carne Asada Dine In $
Orange County-based colleagues Sarah Mosqueda and Cindy Carcamo directed me to the Santa Ana taqueria opened in 2022 by Jorge Cantoran and Jesus Aceves for their handsomely constructed, exemplary Tijuana-style tacos. Fresh tortillas blush pink from the addition of beet juice. Ask for “con todo” and they arrive in paper sporting the timeless mix of meats and garnishes, including a generous splotch of guacamole and, if you ordered al pastor, a nick of pineapple.
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The barbacoa taco from Barbacoa Ramirez.
(Andrea D’Agosto / For The Times)

Barbacoa Ramirez

Arleta Lamb Puesto $
Any local conversation around sublime lamb barbacoa should include the weekend stand that Gonzalez Ramirez and his family set up on Saturday and Sunday mornings in the north San Fernando Valley. Cradled in plush made-to-order tortillas, the tacos come in three forms: molten-textured barbacoa; a pancita variation stained with chiles that goes fast; and incredible moronga, a nubbly, herbaceous sausage made with lamb’s blood.
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Media Luna taco at Bee Taqueria.
(Stephanie Breijo / Los Angeles Times)

Bee Taqueria

West Adams Seafood Dine In $
Alex Carrasco’s West Adams taqueria serves the community in two ways. The walk-up menu plays on familiar forms that take gentle creative liberties, including a fantastic, crackling media luna with shrimp and scallops served with a side of seafood consomé for dipping. His taco omakase, a very L.A. idea that requires advance reservations, turns the medium into a series of fanciful art pieces. Underneath all the beauty, they still hit the palate as delicious tacos.
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The plato de birria con pistola at Birrieria Barajas.
(Andrea D’Agosto / For The Times)

Birrieria Barajas

East Compton Goat birria Puesto $
The barbacoa de chivo that begins for Robert Barajas Jr. in the morning’s wee hours reaches its final form, in front of Eddie’s Liquor on Compton Boulevard, as quesabirria. The spices absorbed by the goat reach your olfactory senses as bites of melted cheese meld with the meat. By all means, also enjoy the barbacoa in tacos, soft or fried, or in a bowl on its own.
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The Poseidon taco at Evil Cooks.
(Andrea D’Agosto / For The Times)

Evil Cooks

El Sereno Octopus Puesto $
You might look at the octopus al pastor fashioned by Alex Garcia and Elvia Huerta and ask, “Is this a gimmick?” The blackened tentacles look nearly sentient stacked on the trompo, like a villainous sea creature being punished by Jason Momoa in an “Aquaman” flick. But taste the taco: smoky, yielding, a little sweet from the addition of pineapple. It’s genius, as is the flan taco for dessert.
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A smoked kanpachi taco from Holbox.
(Andrea D’Agosto / For The Times)

Holbox

Historic South-Central Fish Dine In $
The Times’ 2023 Restaurant of the Year, Gilberto Cetina’s marisqueria counter at the Mercado La Paloma is among the most consistent places I suggest to food obsessives visiting Los Angeles. All the tacos deliver, but three are transcendent: smoked kanpachi flamed with peanut chile oil and cooled with salsa cruda and sliced avocado; expertly grilled octopus set over sofrito tinted with calamari ink; and scallop with, among other garnishes, marinated fennel wound into a sculptural coil.
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The brisket taco from Macheen.
(Andrea D’Agosto / For The Times)

Macheen

Boyle Heights Brisket Dine In $
Four years into his open-ended breakfast and lunch residency at Milpa Grille in Boyle Heights, Jonathan Perez continues to serve inventive tacos with a winning outline: complex, saucy and blasted with acid. His breakfast tacos built around rich, cumulous scrambled eggs set a citywide standard. He saves his most ephemeral creations — say, a ribeye banh mi taco over a blue corn tortilla with ruffly edges — for Sundays at Smorgasburg.
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Shrimp dorado taco from Mariscos Jalisco.
(Andrea D’Agosto / For The Times)

Mariscos Jalisco

Boyle Heights Shrimp Food Truck $
If you’re scanning this list and have never heard of, or have not yet tried, Raul Ortega’s tacos dorados de camarón, hear me now: Laurie Ochoa chose the 22-year-old institution as the recipient of The Times’ 2024 Gold Award for the finest reasons. I am one among generations of food writers telling you it might be the best seafood taco you ever have. At the very least, Ortega’s masterpiece is a vital part of our dining culture and conversation. Go, and weigh in.
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Chile colorado tacos from El Ruso.
(Andrea D’Agosto / For The Times)

El Ruso

Echo Park Chile Colorado Food Truck $
Taquero Walter Soto and tortillera Julia Silva: He’s from Tijuana, she’s Sonoran, and they’ve been a professional team for over 20 years. Follow El Ruso on Instagram for the daily whereabouts of their trucks. Usually one parks in the shade near the corner of Sunset Boulevard and Echo Park Avenue, where a wobbly taco filled with Silva’s mother’s recipe for spicy-earthy chile colorado will make clear why their long-running partnership endures.
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Cachete tacos from Tacos al Vapor El Canelo.
(Andrea D’Agosto / For The Times)

Tacos Al Vapor El Canelo

East Los Angeles Cachete Dine In $
This East L.A. storefront makes the list for one distinctive specialty: tacos al vapor, the small tortillas steamed with various cuts of cabeza (cow’s head), slowly simmered with a puree of onions, herbs and other aromatics. The prize is cachete, or cheek. Its loamy texture all but sighs into the tortilla. Customers receive the tacos starkly plain and open-faced, ready to be riddled with chopped onion, cilantro and brightly acidic salsas.
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The mixto vampiro plate at Tacos La Carreta.
(Andrea D’Agosto / For The Times)

Tacos La Carreta

Santa Fe Springs Chorreada Dine In $
At his original Long Beach truck or recently opened shop in Whittier, José Manuel Morales Bernal’s star-making dish at his Sinaloan-style taquerias is the chorreada, a crisped, meaty brute harboring a secret: asiento, a paste rendered after frying chicharrónes. Its taste adds depths both familiar and mysterious, crossing the nutty, caramelized purity of homemade ghee with the unambiguous whomp of pork.
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Al Pastor tacos from Tacos Los Güichos.
(Andrea D’Agosto / For The Times)

Tacos Los Güichos

Florence Al Pastor Food Truck $
The mobile taqueria that Mariano Zenteno has been operating since 1992, currently serving from a trailer in the parking lot of an auto shop on West Slauson Avenue, serves the al pastor taco I love most in Los Angeles. It’s all in the pastoreros’ knife work, which you can witness in the evenings: Güichos serves tacos all day but only sets up the trompo for al pastor after 5 p.m.
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The Villa's Trio (right) and mulita con pierna de pollo at Villa's Tacos.
(Shelby Moore / For The Times)

Villa's Tacos

Highland Park Pollo Dine In $
With his “tacos estilo Los Angeles” and his signage that’s very intentionally the color of a Dodgers cap, Victor Villa embodies the hometown achiever. His blue-corn queso taco is a maximum-capacity spectacle: six meat or vegan filling options (including smoky chicken thigh meat I favor), layers of griddled cheese, frijoles, cotija, onion, crema and lots of guacamole. It takes two hands to balance, but it never lasts long.
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