We also have a club on Sixth Street, Mala Vida, so we know our customers love birria after a night of partying.'Ī little digging and you'll find birria tacos on menus at a handful of other places around town, including Taco More, where they make theirs with the cabrito (goat) used traditionally in Jalisco. and it is great for crudas, aka hangovers. 'That is why we like to offer it only on the weekends. 'Birria takes a lot of time and patience to make,' says Bucio. Their salsas are all made fresh daily and their tortillas are not only made by hand, but griddled to order too. They begin the process at 4am on the weekends, working in very small batches to ensure ultimate freshness. This past spring, they began running birria and quesabirria tacos as a weekend special at Gabriela's Downtown, using beef and a paste made from guajillo, ancho, and cascabel chiles. It is also very addicting, so once you try it, you will keep coming back for more.'

'With so many people sharing photos of their birria tacos it has opened others' minds to trying it. In Michoacán, from where their family originates, birria is a special dish made to celebrate milestones like birthdays and weddings. 'I think birria has always been popular amongst us Mexicans, but with social media it has finally reached others,' says Gabriela Bucio, who owns Gabriela's Downtown with her brother Arturo. A quick glance at his droolworthy Instagram feed (which has grown to over 10,000 followers) will show that Guerrero sells out daily, going through 11 briskets a day. In addition to birria tacos, he offers a 'quesotaco' made with griddled Monterry Jack cheese wrapped around the meat, a birria mulita, and birria ramen served out of a Tapatío noodle bowl. He makes a green jalapeño salsa and a red salsa made with tomato and chile de árbol. Guerrero cooks his guajillo-based birria for four hours and fries his handmade corn tortillas in beef fat from the consommé. I feel like Austin was just waiting for someone to start doing it because almost all my first clients were telling me that they had been looking for those tacos for months here in Austin.' 'I don't know if I was the first one to do beef – I'm pretty sure I wasn't – but I really think I was the first one to advertise it. because of social media, so I started advertising it on Instagram and tagging everyone who runs a food blog page,' Guerrero recalls. So he began researching and recipe-testing before adding beef birria to his trailer menu.

Guerrero was no stranger to cooking delicious beef low and slow, but in his home state of San Luis Potosí, barbacoa is king. After seven years working at Torchy's Tacos, Guerrero had worked his way from the dish pit to the kitchen before leaving to open a trailer called La Tunita 512 in November of 2019. Here in Austin, Gerardo 'Jerry' Guerrero saw that beef birria was having a moment, and decided to experiment with it. As the internet lit up with close-ups and slo-mo clips of the tender meat-and-cheese tacos submerged in steamy consommé, the trend started to spread up through California and across the U.S. Marketing on Instagram to a young Latinx community propelled the business to quick success, and soon other birria trailers followed. “I think birria has always been popular amongst us Mexicans, but with social media it has finally reached others.” –Gabriela Bucio, Gabriela’s DowntownĪfter Ruben Ramirez and Oscar Gonzalez discovered quesabirria on a visit to Tijuana and decided to introduce beef birria to L.A., they opened Birrieria Gonzalez in a barbershop's parking lot in 2015. These tacos were topped with salsa de chile de árbol, then served with onion, cilantro, and a cup of beef consommé for dipping. The Tijuana version is said to have started in the 1950s when Don Guadalupe Zárate opened a street stand selling birria de chivo (baby goat) but switched to beef to achieve greater yield, using a cut similar to brisket.īirria de res continued to gain popularity into the Eighties, when Juan José Romero opened Tacos Aarón and began peddling 'quesabirria': corn tortillas folded and stuffed with mozzarella cheese and birria, then griddled to melty perfection on a grill. An insatiable obsession with food porn is what helped launch Tijuana-born birria de res (and its cheese-laden cousin quesabirria) into a food sensation that is rippling across Austin, and the whole country.īirria, a dish from Jalisco, is traditionally made from goat or lamb and slow-roasted in a chile-based adobo for hours.

Social media is responsible for spreading countless food trends across the globe, for better or worse. Gerardo 'Jerry' Guerrero, owner of La Tunita 512 (Photo by John Anderson)

Lechuza tacos