TACOTECA
Cuisine: Mexican
Address: City Works Depot, 1/90 Wellesley Street West, central city
Reservations: Accepted
Phone: (09) 320 1336
Website: Tacoteca.co.nz
Drinks: Fully licensed
From the menu: Guacamole $18; chilaquiles $19; cabbage taco; lamb taco $9; beef taco $9; fish taco $9.50
Rating: 18/20
Score: 0-7 Steer clear.
Advertisement
Advertise with NZME.“Aha!” said a handsome Mexican man when I first walked into Tacoteca. “Many years ago you reviewed a restaurant at The Hilton where I was working. I’d just come to New Zealand and my English wasn’t good. You wrote that I was a ‘rockstar’ and when I got to work the next day everybody was calling out ‘Rockstar! Rockstar!’. I didn’t know what it meant.”
Well, so much for slipping in anonymously. But I did remember Edmundo Farrera from Fish at the Hilton in 2011 — he was the sommelier there and had recently arrived from running the winelist at Michelin-starred Hakkasan in London. I’d just never realised he was the same guy who eventually opened La Fuente, the Mezcal bar in Snickel Lane, and was now launching Tacoteca, a “taqueria, cantina and tortilleria”.
Why did Edmundo move from London in the first place?
“Because I met a Kiwi girl. On the dancefloor. In a club.”
There has been much written about the invisibility of women’s work in economic discourse but what about their contribution to addressing the skills shortage? How many talented immigrants have ended up in New Zealand after being recruited on the dancefloor during an extended mix of Deee-Lite’s Groove is in the Heart?
That particular Kiwi girl, Anna, is now Edmundo’s wife, and forms part of the team behind Tacoteca, along with chef Jean Brito (also Michelin-trained) and his partner Hannah Port. The four of them have done a perfect job on this restaurant, though they also rely heavily on the labour of Lola, a tortilla machine at the heart of the operation.
They’re in the old Food Truck Garage building, on the corner of Cook and Wellesley Sts (this complex is called City Works Depot but I’ve said that phrase to a few people and got blank looks, so ‘next to Al Brown’s bagel place’ is probably the best description). It’s a nice room which doesn’t try to be too much — I missed a bit of heat and insulation on the winter night we visited, but the menu and furniture seem designed for you to move through fairly quickly. That’ll be good for their business model, and you’d want to be doing a few covers when you’re selling tacos for just nine bucks a pop.
That price point will be key to their success here. Tacoteca is one of the few serious city restaurants suitable for most budgets — they’ve been packed in the short time they’ve been open and I suspect that’s because a good taco provides an inexpensive and beautiful Instagram photo.
The other part of the equation, of course, is that everything tastes very, very good. My God, how much did Auckland need an authentic Mexican restaurant? Lots of Kiwis are now holidaying in Mexico and word is that the food at Tacoteca is indistinguishable from the real thing. Perhaps even better, given the stories Jean was telling us.
Advertisement
Advertise with NZME.
“We have a saying in Mexico City — ‘Dog won’t eat dog’. That’s why you feed your taco to your dog first. If he eats it, you know it’s all good.”
He looked at me and I noticed a particular thought cross his face, like “Maybe I shouldn’t have told the Viva restaurant reviewer my classic ‘Dog won’t eat dog’ anecdote,” but hey, I was all for it and proceeded to order the beef taco that had given rise to the story.
In fact, we tried most of the tacos and loved them all. They come one per order, so unless you’re used to sharing mouth space with the person joining you, you should probably just order individually and forget trying to split them. Each taco is a little work of art, involving a complex combination of ingredients which, I will be honest, I couldn’t always keep up with — the subtle differences between individual breeds of chilli, for example. I did what you will probably do — closed my eyes and enjoyed the symphony of flavours, without worrying too much about individual instruments.
One of my favourites was the cabbage taco which, well, I’m not sure who looks at a selection of taco fillings and says “Yum yum, I’ll take the cabbage!” but you should. That particular brassica does particularly well when chargrilled (I wonder if it’s all that extra surface area on the cut face of the cabbage — the waffle of the garden) and this one is lovely and smoky with just the right balance of crispiness and cookedness. Pink pickled radish creates colour on the plate and in the mouth, and moreishness comes from a tangy, nutty salsa macha.
Fish tacos are beautiful too, the fillet rubbed with a subtle chilli for flavour and heat, then placed on a bed of avocado-coriander mayo. Beef uses a variety of cuts, slow cooked together for depth of flavour and you should ask about the 12-hour lamb, which is baked inside long, leathery agave leaves.
There are little cheffy flourishes too — a tart powder of blackened radish leaves is dusted over some of the plates; compressed slices of pineapple with blackened edges are tucked into a bowl of guacamole. Then sometimes it is the simple touches that impress — the way the tortilla chips are heated, like they’ve just been baked. Perhaps they have.
The sole dessert is stunningly good. And there is a margarita menu. Perfecting these drinks has been Edmundo’s life’s work, and he offers many options — the malinche is his signature, but we also enjoyed the pink senorita, with its surprise hit of plum wine.
For $20 you’ll be getting the best margarita on the planet — though there are great non-alcoholic options too, and Tacoteca is so good you’ll get a warm happy buzz, even without the tequila.
