El Paso’s tacos are a statewide story now
Four local spots landed on Texas Monthly’s ranking of the 50 best taco restaurants in Texas. Two of them are nowhere near downtown.
For decades the statewide food conversation treated El Paso as a rounding error — too far west, too close to New Mexico, not really Texas. Texas Monthly’s ranking of the 50 best taco restaurants in the state put four El Paso-area kitchens on the list, and put one of them near the very top.
Who made it
- Elemi at No. 2, for heirloom corn nixtamalized on site daily and turned into tortillas people drive across the state for.
- Taquería El Tiger at No. 5, street-style tacos out on Socorro Road in the Lower Valley.
- Taconeta at No. 6, a contemporary taquería on Montana Ave.
- El Botanero Mariscos, honorable mention, for ceviche tacos out east.
The part locals should notice
Two of those four are not downtown and not on the West Side. El Tiger is in Socorro, past the missions. El Botanero is out toward Eastlake. Elemi itself left its downtown room in 2024 for a bigger space on Eastlake Blvd, with a sister taquería on Paseo del Norte on the far West Side.
The food map of this city has stretched out along with the city. If your mental list of where to eat still stops at Mesa Street, it is a decade out of date.
And one that is gone
Texas Monthly’s older taco coverage also sent people to H&H Car Wash and Coffee Shop for breakfast tacos. H&H closed in 2021 after roughly 63 years, and it has not come back. If a list sends you to E Yandell, the list is old.