Lexington restaurant known for authentic Mexican tacos, street fare opens second location
There’s a reason John “Porky” Cooper has eaten at La Taquiza four times in the last week. “I absolutely love it,” said Cooper, who blogs about food under the name Porky’sPicks.
Cooper encountered the owners, Sandra Barrios and Alfredo Carranza when the couple first opened their food truck in the parking lot of a gas station on Nicholasville Road.
He tried the pambazo, a sandwich made with potato, chorizo, lettuce, sour cream and cheese, that he had only seen in Mexico before and loved it. From there, “I tried everything else too and it was wonderful too.”
For Cooper the food truck was a welcome, authentic addition to the Lexington Mexican food scene. For the couple it was the answer to two problems they’d encountered when they moved her from Mexico in 2008.
La Taquiza started as a food truck
When they moved here they had trouble finding work, Sandra said, “because we looked so young.”
They were young, they’d married only the year before when they were in their teens.
They loved Lexington but in addition to having trouble finding work they really missed the authentic street tacos from home — Sandra had been working at a street taqueria since she was 14 — and the taquiza parties where they were served.
So, in 2012 they set up the food truck Cooper found and began serving the tacos they remembered, what they call “a worthy taco.”
Lexington apparently was ready for the real thing and their business did so well that in 2017 they opened a small restaurant, appropriately called La Taquiza, on Tiverton Way in South Lexington.
What’s on the menu at La Taquiza?
Although far from the usual haunts of Lexington foodies, La Taquiza attracted devoted customers who traveled to get not only their tacos and the pambazo but also their tortas, enmoladas, burritos, empanadas and a host of other main and side dishes, soups and desserts. It also became a place where people from Mexico who can’t get back for an authentic meal “ could come eat and feel like they are at home,” they said.
La Taquiza survived the pandemic and thrived but was always a little small (only a few tables in a small dining room) and not quite what the couple had envisioned (pretty run-of-the-mill suburban strip mall look.)
As it happened, Mamadou Savane, another icon of Lexington’s international food scene, decided last summer he was ready for a break after 14 years of preparing his tantalizing African stews for an eager Kentucky public. When Sandra and Alfredo looked at Sav’s, a rehabbed gas station at 630 E. Main, they knew they’d found what they wanted, and the downtown location customers had been clamoring for.
The garage doors that open out onto an enclosed, landscaped patio were what she’d “been dreaming about,” Sandra said.
Opening a second location downtown
Sav’s closed in August and they got to work, importing tile from Mexico to decorate the walls in the dining area and the kitchen, hiring local artists to create murals inside and out. It’s thanks to Augustin Zarate’s Maz Arte that Freida Kahlo smiles enigmatically over the salsa bar and to Keaton Young Art that a vibrant Aztec god with corn emerging from his headdress watches over diners as they walk in to La Taquiza.
Another contributor to the décor was Alfredo’s father, who painted on canvas and shipped his work here to install on the walls. One of his pieces shows the life cycle of corn, a staple of Mexican cuisine, including the water and sun that nourish it.
But, of course, it’s the food that is at the center of the enterprise and on the soft opening day, a Tuesday, the new La Taquiza offered 99-cent tacos for Taco Tuesday and the crowds came.
Grand opening, specials planned
The grand opening, planned after their liquor license is approved, will be Dec. 3, and will include a Mariachi band at brunch, salsa band in the evening, 99-cent tacos and free margaritas.
Alfredo says the new location’s menu will have some things not offered on Tiverton Way, saying the kitchen offers more opportunities for grilling meat. One of their specialties is the pastor taco filling that’s pork mixed with a special red sauce and pineapple then cooked on a standing spit like a Greek gyro. And for Alfredo the salsa bar is a critical part of their cuisine – there guests can choose fresh salsas according to taste to enhance the flavor of their orders.
Cooper predicts the Main Street location will be a success because of “how beautiful everything is ... the atmosphere itself will draw you back.”
But there’s the food, too. Just the night before he’d had the molcajete, “a bunch of meats and cactus and vegetables served in a lava rock bowl ... it’s amazing.”
La Taquiza
Where: 630 E. Main St. and 130 W. Tiverton Way Unit 190.
Hours: Sunday-Thursday, 11 a.m. to 9 p.m., Friday and Saturday 11 a.m. to 10 p.m.
Online: Taquizatacosky.com
Call: 859-447-8187