We are not going to tell you our margaritas are the best on Whyte Avenue. We are going to tell you we squeeze every lime by hand, we use 100 percent agave tequila in the house pour, and the only thing from a bottle is the tequila. The classic is lime, agave and Tromba blanco, shaken hard and served on…
We did not design the room for Instagram, but we are not going to pretend it hurts. Here are the five spots our guests photograph most. One: the neon TACO REPUBLIC sign over the bar on Whyte. Two: the birria consommé pour at the table. Three: the pink and green tile behind the downtown counter. Four: the patio in July,…
Every week someone at the bar asks which taco is the best one on the board. Chef Mateo refuses to answer, so we polled the staff. Birria won on comfort: six hours of braising, a crispy cheese edge and a cup of consommé do a lot of work on a January night. Al pastor won on craft: marinated pork shaved…
The word taco likely comes from the silver mines of 18th-century Mexico, where miners used paper wrapped around gunpowder, called tacos, to blast rock. The food version, a tortilla wrapped around a filling, is far older than that and goes back to the nixtamalized corn of pre-Hispanic Mesoamerica. Tacos al pastor arrived with Lebanese immigrants to Puebla and Mexico City…