Where to find the best Mexico City-style tacos and chilaquiles

Although I am a lifelong lover of chilaquiles, I have yet to scratch the surface of the depth and breadth of styles offered throughout Mexico. Jimmy Shaw, a Mexico City native who opened Loteria Grill in Los Angeles, once told the Times' Steve Lopez that “there are as many chilaquiles recipes as there are homes in Mexico.” Shaw made hers with thick tortilla chips tossed in a skillet with salsa verde and garnished with plenty of crema.

You may find red chilaquiles in Guadalajara with chips simmered in an earthy sauce made of tomatoes and chiles. Or mountains of chips topped with mole or salsa fortified with pasilla chili in Oaxaca. In Los Angeles, they're everywhere, served alongside eggs or as a hearty filling in countless cakes.

When writer and Mexican cuisine expert Bill Esparza says a restaurant serves the best chilaquiles in town, you pay attention.

I bookmarked Taquearte after Esparza's Eater's article about their excellent chilaquiles. And it was food manager Laurie Ochoa's inclusion of the restaurant in our guide to the 101 best tacos (and her mother's love of chilaquiles) that led me to a Pico Rivera shopping center on a recent Friday afternoon in search of campechanos tacos and the chilaquiles that would forever alter how I feel about tortilla chips and salsa.

Taquearte restaurant in Pico Rivera specializes in Mexico City-style chilaquiles and tacos.

(Jason Armond / Los Angeles Times)

It was just under 2pm and the dining room, filled with a mix of café chairs and picnic-style benches, was still bustling with activity. Taquearte is a daytime establishment that closes at 4 p.m., but there is usually a line until someone closes the main door. On the walls, black-and-white prints of newspaper articles, magazines and book pages looked like they were taken from a Pinterest board in a scrapbook.

The divorced chilaquiles in Taquearte in Pico Rivera.

(Jason Armond / Los Angeles Times)

I ordered the spicy green chilaquiles with over-easy eggs and New York steak, then tried to find a seat. The restaurant shares land with Duran's Bakery, and when it's busy (always), diners move through the space, gazing longingly at the display case filled with shells, wafers, and swaddled children as they make their way to the patio. On days when the line at Taquearte stretches all the way to the parking lot, the smell (and sight) of sweet bread can be too much to bear, and you'll end up with ear shards on your shirt before you order breakfast.

But on this first visit, the chilaquiles arrived in a matter of minutes. The fries were barely visible under an avalanche of salsa verde, crumbled cheese, zigzags of cream, two fried eggs, and a strip of steak hanging on opposite sides of the plate. I set aside the eggs and steak, then dug a fork into the mound of French fries. The flavor of the sauce was immediate and surprising, crackling with the bright, citrusy charge of tomatillos and serrano chiles. After a few bites, the guacachile announced itself in billowing waves of heat.

Scattered on top were generous pebbles of panela cheese, soft, milky and squeaky like halloumi. The fries underneath were remarkably thin and delicate, but sturdy enough to retain their crunch. They floated in a magical state of limbo between wet and dry, crunchy and wilted.

At Taquearte, owners Mónica Quinto and Anyelo Farfán champion a style of chilaquiles specific to their childhoods in Mexico City.

“I grew up with my mom's chilaquiles recipe,” Quinto said during a recent call. “And panela cheese is definitely something typical of Mexico City.”

The green sauce is Quinto's mother's recipe, while the red sauce comes from Farfán's family. It is a tomato sauce with red serrano chili and guacachile if you ask for it spicy. Although the menu does not advertise it, you can opt for red and green halves with the divorced chilaquiles.

But it wasn't just the Mexico City-style chilaquiles that Quinto and Farfán hoped to bring to Los Angeles.

“Most of the tacos here are small,” Farfán said, referring to the Tijuana-style tacos that dominate Los Angeles restaurants, trucks and stands. “There wasn't a place that made really big tacos like in Mexico City. That was the idea of ​​what we wanted to do.”

The mega queca in Taquearte in Pico Rivera. The flight of sauces and cheese cracklings at Taquearte in Pico Rivera. From left to right, manager Caida Miykel, human resources manager Salma Cobián and head chef Jovany Enriquez de Taquearte. (Jason Armond / Los Angeles Times)

After noon, the kitchen's flat surface is filled with chunks of pork chop, steak, chopped chorizo, prime rib, and chicken. The meat is slid on a large corn tortilla and topped with roasted nopales, onions and fried potato pieces that become creamy and spreadable. If you're looking to maximize protein, order a campechano, which comes with chorizo ​​and a second meat. Then add some cheese. The triple-decker taco has chorizo ​​on the bottom, a half-melted, half-crispy brisket of cheese, maybe a grilled pork chop, and the usual potatoes and vegetables. It will seem impossible to hold in your hands, but you will do it.

Whatever you order, it will be served with a wooden board containing four bowls of red, green, black and orange sauces. The red one is a cucumber sauce, fruity with cucumber and chile de arbol. Salsa macha is a toasted, oily seasoning paste with peanuts and sesame seeds. There are seven roasted, charred, and crushed chiles in the orange sauce. And the hottest of the bunch, the green one, is a fiery combination of jalapenos and green habaneros.

When you place your order, make sure there are no missing items on the table to season with the sauces. Maybe start with the chicharrón de queso, a large curved candle of cheese melted until crispy. Break the cheese into pieces and add heaping spoonfuls of the sauces. If you have enough Lactaid in your pocket, you might want to consider the mega queca, a gigantic quesadilla made with a thick corn tortilla folded over a half-inch of melted cheese and sautéed mushrooms.

The best time to visit is just before noon, when you can still order one of the restaurant's molletes and then get back in line for tacos. The restaurant sources its birotes from Duran's to make open-face breakfast sandwiches, spread with beans and cheese, popular throughout Mexico. At Taquearte, split rolls are spread with refried beans and chorizo ​​and then topped with a single layer of speckled cheese. While some muffins are made with crusty rolls, these birotes are so soft and fresh that they border on mushy. Depending on how you spent your childhood afternoons, it may remind you of a slightly undercooked French bread pizza. Once you try it, you won't come back after noon. And whatever time you visit, the best chilaquiles in Los Angeles will be waiting for you.

Caida Miykel, manager of the Taquearte restaurant, delivers an order of chilaquiles to customers at the Pico Rivera restaurant.

(Jason Armond/Los Angeles Times)