Long before tacos exploded onto menus worldwide, they were quite literally explosive.
During Mexico’s economic boom in the late 18th century, tacos were the makeshift sticks of dynamite that silver miners used to excavate rock. According to a popular theory from the food historian Jeffrey Pilcher, the name entered the food canon when those miners realized that their lunches — boiled potatoes wrapped in tortillas, often with a splash of hot sauce — resembled their incendiaries.
It took about two more centuries for tacos to travel to New York, where they have settled into every kind of setting and style — street food, fine dining, desserts, Indian cuisine and even as part of an omakase.
There’s merit to all that creativity. But what makes the tacos at Carnitas Ramírez so special is that they are, in a way, unremarkable. They follow a classic formula that you’ll find at other taquerias: a pliable tortilla, a deftly seasoned filling and a brightly stinging salsa. Many taquerias get two out of the three elements right. Carnitas Ramírez nails them all, and goes a step further — it reminds diners that, as ubiquitous and varied as tacos may now be, they began as a staple of the working class.
When the married couple who co-own the restaurant, Tania Apolinar and Giovanni Cervantes, opened their first place, Taqueria Ramírez, four years ago in Greenpoint, Brooklyn, neither had any restaurant experience. Mr. Cervantes, the chef, spent the coronavirus lockdown teaching himself to make tacos like the ones he grew up eating in Mexico City — where thousands of New Yorkers had decamped during the pandemic.
The cross-pollination between those cities has stirred great interest here in the couple’s traditional approach: preparing cuts like tripe and suadero in bubbling lard inside a comal choricero. Taqueria Ramírez made many Mexicans feel at home, and others feel as if they were on vacation. The owners’ background in photography and their social media savvy certainly helped. The restaurant quickly became the most talked-about New York taqueria since Los Tacos No. 1.
This sequel — an airy, counter-service spot in the East Village filled with abuela-coded kitsch — feels even more ambitious and so far, just as busy. In look and taste, it pays homage to what tacos were created to be: an inexpensive, satisfying food stuffed with whatever ingredients were around. (The restaurant has two additional owners, the chef Yvon de Tassigny and the manager, Kari Boden.)
Carnitas were one of the earliest taco fillings, according to Dr. Pilcher, and they included an indiscriminate mix of pork parts, not just the so-called choice cuts like pork butt.
All of those parts are on offer at Carnitas Ramírez. They come dressed with diced onion and cilantro and wrapped in supple, lard-stained tortillas that are cooked to order. The oreja (ear) is lean and gelatinous, like a chubby noodle. The cachete (cheek) arrives in rich, juicy shreds. The trompa (snout) has the slippery, fat-licked pleasure of a mushroom plucked from a bowl of ramen. The surtida taco, which includes a little bit of everything, is texture roulette: crunchy, creamy, tender and slick. The sesadilla is a fried tortilla pocket concealing a ricotta-like filling — that’s the brain.
What’s the trick to making offal this exciting? Doing the most with very little, a technique Mr. Cervantes learned from the chef Victor Fuentes of the restaurant Carnitas Don Pepe in Michoacán, Mexico. Mr. Cervantes sears the meatiest parts of the animal — the butt, ribs, shank, belly and head — then slowly cooks them in their own fat, along with salt and garlic. Later on, he adds the other cuts, letting them swim in the lardy liquid until tender. The cooked meat is plucked from the pot, still dripping, and placed on steam tables, then on colorful plastic plates for serving.
Some cuts can border on overly rich, so you’ll want toppings. On each of my visits, I licked my plate clean of the kicky salsa roja with guajillo and habanero chiles, and the tomatillo-avocado salsa verde. The chicharrones, available either as a side or as a crumbly topping, provide a lovely crunch.
The casual, unpretentious food is matched by the décor, including plastic pails that double as chairs. The restaurant is meant to look like “a humble, working-class home,” said Ms. Apolinar, similar to the ones she and Mr. Cervantes grew up in. In Mexico, she said, carnitas are a weekend family tradition, purchased by the kilogram and eaten on a big table with the television on in the background.
Carnitas Ramírez, accordingly, used to be open only on weekends. (This week it’ll begin serving on Wednesdays and Thursdays.) The dining room features several depictions of the Virgin of Guadalupe, mint-green paint that is peeling by design and a small TV usually playing the telenovela “María la del Barrio.”
The barrio, this is not. Your dining companions may include Latino families, but also East Village hipsters in vintage concert T-shirts filming TikTok videos. The next-door neighbor is a vaguely Latin-inspired restaurant where the brunch hordes slurp bottomless margaritas under pink neon signs. And the tacos at Carnitas Ramirez are $5 each. (Ms. Apolinar said the price accounts for the labor required to make the tortillas and the $18 to $22 an hour, plus tips, that the staff is paid.)
It’s not hard to find a great taco in New York, especially in neighborhoods like Sunset Park and the South Bronx. Carnitas Ramírez is just one gem in a rich landscape. Its tacos aren’t groundbreaking, but that doesn’t make them any less delicious.
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