Kayaks have been paddling up for tacos and margaritas since the 1990s. In 2019, Rumba owner Travis Rosenthal purchased this house-turned-cafe clinging to the Portage Bay shoreline. He imported a few tropical high notes from his Capitol Hill rum bar and upgraded the food without changing the easy-access nature of the tacos, burritos, and chips and guac. A summer cantina below the main patio has a separate bar and taco truck.

David Orozco’s steakhouse grills high-end beef (including Wagyu from the US, Australia, and Japan) in Mexican cuts like peinecillo, vacio, or zabuton. The runaway hit is the sprawling carne asada—or maybe the papa loca, a baked potato loaded in the extreme. 

From the ground-floor of a very ’70s-style apartment building, this small restaurant with a big name gives a masterclass on the difference quality ingredients can make. The aguas frescas run thick with fresh fruit blended in, the salsa bar gleams with stoplight-bright reds, greens, and oranges. In the long-stewed birria or grilled carne asada, the beef is the way to go here, whether in the modern, crowd-feeding pizza birria, or the traditional hand-pinched sopes.

Freddy Zavala’s original birria shop in the corner of Guadalupe Market puts out tacos of tender, shredded birria, with a sidecar of beef consommé for dipping. But the frenzied love for this growing chainlet stems from the additional layer of melted mozzarella that gets crisped at the edges, and the vampiros add even more crunch to this equation.

Just south of Jefferson Park, a companionable coffee shop serves coffee and espresso laced with Mexican tradition, like café de olla. The drinks are great, but Quilombo’s menu of tamales (nopales, chorizo and cheese, salsa verde, and so many more) are the jam. Order them cold to prep at home, warm to eat on the go, or with a 12-ounce americano or coffee—a brilliant breakfast special.

Carmelo Gaspar spent 25 years working prep at Cactus before striking out with some showstopping tacos and his own family-run window inside Hillcrest Market. Fresh tortillas preview the quality levels of what goes inside: rich campechano, nopales with fresh grill marks, an al pastor that plays fiery pork against cool pineapple. A second location at 12th and Cherry offers a larger menu and some seating.

Springy hand-formed tortillas are good enough to eat straight from the griddle. They’re even better when filled with charred carne asada, the titular carnitas, or al pastor that melds pork, spices, and pineapple sweetness. The food from the busy open kitchen blows away meals at way fancier (and more expensive) places.

The menu of this bare-bones strip-mall shop just over Seattle’s southern border extends beyond the namesake sandwiches, but they remain the star. Dwarfed in reputation by the torta, the sesame-crested cemita remains a regional specialty, served here as they are at home in Puebla: a giant, soft bun heaped with grilled meat, mild white cheese, and the better part of an avocado. Bring a friend to help you eat it, so you have room for something sweet from the Mexican-style dessert shop next door.

A family-owned steakhouse on 10th Avenue East presents Mexican cuts like zabuton and peinecillo—sizzling, perfectly seasoned, and sourced from the same ranches that supply the city’s top-tier beef temples. Antojitos, tortillas, and a memorable chile en nogada round out a pretty magical, meat-driven meal, served by the light of lanterns hung from the driftwood tree in the center of the room.

Chunks of juicy asada come strewn around the tlayuda, a pizza-sized crispy toasted tortilla, spread with beans and pork fat, and topped with vegetables, avocado, cheese, and meat. The dish anchors the permanent menu of Oaxacan specialties at this small spot just on Ambaum Boulevard, along with a standard slate of enchiladas and tacos. But there’s more to El Cabrito than meets the eye: The covered patio around the back expands the physical space, and the specials list bolsters the menu with exciting options like crab empanadas, rib eye tacos, and pork ribs with purslane.

The longstanding Señor Moose changed its name, ever so slightly, but remains an all-day institution. Mornings might mean deep-flavored machaca hash or huevos rancheros in the pink, plant-filled dining room. By afternoon tacos and tequila drinks rule in the gaily covered seating out front.

Fonda La Catrina’s sibling marisquería down the street has a more modern, whitewashed sensibility that balances seafood tacos, shrimp dishes, and sopa de mariscos with enchiladas and queso fundido. The cocktail list introduces agave spirits into everything from negronis to old-fashioneds, but expect plenty of margaritas on the spacious back patio.

It’s the family-run neighborhood restaurant of your dreams—expansive happy hour, fútbol on in the lively bar, a tostada snack that greets you the moment you sit down. That neighborhood just happens to be Pike/Pine. A broad menu of tacos, enchiladas, soups, and so many margaritas combines comfort with care.

Folkloric skeleton La Catrina looks down on a gently industrial dining room—walls full of art, bar full of mezcal, and a menu full of choices. Tacos, platos, pozole, and mole-drenched enchiladas display considerable care and refreshingly reasonable prices. Meanwhile, a courtyard out back rises to any margaritas-and-guac happy hour occasion.

When Osbaldo Hernandez and Dennis Ramey decided to start their own business, their first hire was crucial: Osbaldo’s mom, Eva. They amped up her traditional, firm creations with even more filling—half-pound bundles stuffed with pork in red chile sauce, sweet potato in mole, or chorizo and cheese. They quickly outgrew their Green Lake walk-up window and now operate from inside El Sueñito Brewing Company.

For nearly 20 years, Gloria Perez has recreated the flavors of her native Oaxaca in a casual hangout on Ballard Avenue, adorned with tiles and nearly always full of diners. The lush, labor-intensive mole negro may be La Carta’s signature, but care infuses the entire menu, from tlayudas to ceviche to lamb birria.

This market on Greenwood’s main drag keeps a low profile—and hides a dynamite taqueria behind the grocery aisles filled with bags of tortillas and jars of huitlacoche. Place your order at the counter for the enormous tacos piled with your choice of meat or the majestic sopes. Your choice, ideally, being the slow-roasted lamb barbacoa.

Lupe Flores is a musician by profession, but her pandemic taco pivot proved so successful, she’s kept it going even now that she’s back on the road. Thank goodness. Flores makes her crunchy, twice-fried tacos just like her Mexican Lebanese grandmother taught her as a child, filling them with hushwe-style beef cooked in brown butter (or some decadent vegan cauliflower). Now that she graduated into her own (fittingly pink) space, she serves them with margaritas, micheladas, and alcoholic slushies.

Using traditional Mexican techniques and her European fine-dining training, chef Janet Becerra tops albacore tuna tostadas with morita Kewpie mayonnaise and burnt habanero oil, stuffs tacos with cauliflower prepared as al pastor, and blankets chicken with mission fig and stone fruit mole. Pancita’s sophisticated modern Mexican cuisine could have been plucked straight from CDMX’s trendy Condesa neighborhood, if it weren’t for the extra work it takes to do things right in Seattle. The best tacos require a great tortilla, so Pancita grinds and nixtamalizes heirloom corn in-house, pressing the resulting masa into tortillas and various other antojitos.

Some people discover Elonka and Martin Perez’s friendly spot through its all-day breakfast tacos: fluffy flour tortillas stuffed with eggs, diced potato, and a host of meat options. But the enormous menu has so many other entry points: barbacoa, vegan burritos, chorizo breakfast scrambles, al pastor tortas on grilled telera rolls, and sturdy tacos of the non-breakfast variety. The original, in a strip mall across from the Othello light rail station, spun off a sleeker location in Tacoma. 

The city’s permit-dodging late-night al pastor stand matured over the last year, sticking its trompo into the ground for good in Kent and Ballard. These are additions, not replacements, for the street-level spirit that started it all. The business retains the key to what drew long lines to the makeshift tents: the giant trompo, laden with the telltale red-tinged of al pastor, and a talented taquero deftly slicing the pork into waiting tortillas.

The knickknacks and dolls on the orange walls and cluttered little market of imported food, cookware, and decor give this restaurant the feeling of a friend’s grandma’s living room in Mexico. The deeply homey Oaxacan and Pueblan comfort food coming from the kitchen matches that with classics like enfrijoladas, albondigas, and chilaquiles. But the restaurant also turns out some dishes much rarer this far north that make it worth going out of the way to try, like the masita con barbacoa, a porridge-like dish made with roasted goat.

In a neighborhood rich with birria and asada, White Center’s local love coalesces around a taco truck permanently parked next to a covered seating area. Throw in the adjacent elote stand, a pantheon of platos and taco combos, and the ability to tote this meal to nearby Beer Star—it’s easy to understand La Fondita’s following. The North Seattle location has less atmosphere around it, but the same affordable, fast, satisfying tacos.

The chalkboard reads more like the menu at a seasonal small-plates restaurant than a taco trailer in a coffee shop parking lot. Garlicky broccoli, brussels sprouts with carrots, and zucchini-corn-tomato tacos pack just as much flavor as the saucy meats on the opposite side of the 10-item menu that features exclusively homey, stew-filled tacos de guisado.