Taco + Vino

Mexican$$

Hard-shell tacos, frozen margs and novelty sombreros were, once, considered hallmarks of a good Mexican restaurant in Australia. They were loud places with lime-spiked Coronas, painted terracotta plates, and a more-is-more attitude towards sour cream; convincing a generation of diners that Mexican and Tex-Mex cuisines were, more or less, one and the same. Viva la chili con carne.

Part of it was the sheer distance between Sydney and Mexico City – it’s hard to know much beyond Old El Paso when the culinary epicentre is some 14,000 kilometres away, with no direct flights, and relatively low numbers of migration. But slowly, gratefully, things have started to change – Taco Tuesday remains, but increasingly, the tortillas are soft, handmade from nixtamalized corn masa.

Taco + Vino is among the new generation of Mexican restaurants in Sydney, having opened in a terrace beside Potts Point restaurants Ezra and Young’s Palace in mid-June. It’s part-owned by executive chef Pablo Galindo, a Mexico City native who moved to Australia more than 15 years ago.

Galindo is one third of the team behind Radio Taco, a 12-seater Chippendale taqueria that went viral last year for its Guadalajaran aesthetic and quesa birria (fried beef tacos dripping with cheese and consomme). Together with places like Papi’s Birria Tacos (Marrickville, Darlinghurst, Carlton) and Olotl (Newtown), it popularised a version of the taqueria you’re more likely to see in Galindo’s hometown – walk-in only, counter service and (mostly) affordable prices.

At Taco + Vino, he’s kept the tacos, but swapped the business model for something a little more difficult to define. Part restaurant, part bar, part taqueria. Wine focused, with only six options available by the glass (but plenty by the bottle, mostly from Australian winemakers such as Mac Forbes pinot noir or Mawun chardonnay, starting at $50). Dimly lit interiors, retaining the banquette seating, desilvered mirror ceiling and bar-restaurant layout installed by former tenant Bar Lucia. The tight, focused menu of a taqueria, charging restaurant prices. Delicious, fun, and a bit confusing. Seemingly neither here, nor there.

Galindo sought to recreate a culinary experience one might have in Mexico, where taquerias tend to focus on one signature dish, repeating and refining it over and over again for decades. These are the places known locally for making the very best tacos el pastor, beef birria, or carne asada. Places such as El Califa de Leon in the Cuauhtemoc area of Mexico City, the birthplace of the Gaonera taco and the first taqueria to receive Michelin star recognition in 2024.

The Gaonera taco, created in 1968 and so-named for bullfighter Rodolfo Gaona, embraces the culinary ethos of good ingredients, treated simply. There are just four components: a corn tortilla, made to order on the comal; a thin slice of rib-eye, lightly seared and salted on the grill; and the fresh acidity of cut lime.

Taco + Vino serves two takes: traditional, with the option of rib-eye from Australian producers Five Founders or The Cape Wagyu; or con costra, with a blend of Oaxacan and cheddar cheeses, fried on a flour tortilla until it becomes golden, crisp and smelling a little too reminiscent of a makeshift English muffin pizza.

Both come liberally salted, with a wedge of lime and stainless steel salsera quartet, half-filled with pickled onion and a trio of house-made “spicy”, “more spicy” and “the most spicy” salsas. Sorry, what type of salsas, exactly? “Spicy,” the waitress repeats, very slowly this time, so I understand. “Very spicy, most spicy.” She gestures towards what I later understand to be the salsa cremosa verde (green, with serrano chillies and tomatillos), salsa roja (red, with arbol and guajillo chillies and tomatillos) and salsa cremosa de habanero (habanero chillies with orange juice, lime juice and allspice).

To me, they are all “a little spicy”, bringing a delicate warmth and acidity to each dish without any of the lush, blinding heat of the chile de agua salsas so commonly served in Mexico City.

Take your first bite without accoutrements, strong and simple. The tortilla is sturdy and warm, enveloping a slice of wagyu just-thick-enough to deliver forthright flavour with a lingering tenderness, like a fancy minute steak through a Mexican lens. The Five Founders rib-eye is good, too, with a little more chew.

There is one stark difference, however, between a Gaonera taco at El Califa de Leon and Taco + Vino. Where one became the most affordable dish served at a Michelin-starred restaurant at roughly $8 per taco, here it’ll cost you up to $19. I know it’s not a fair comparison – the two taquerias exist on entirely different economic planes. But you would be hard pressed to find a more expensive taco anywhere in Sydney (I tried).

Beyond the Gaonera, the menu includes semi-elevated takes on all the usual suspects – Jaliscan beef birria, rich and herbaceous (as is the specialty at Radio Taco); Baja fish, delicately battered, served with shaved celeriac and an aromatic mayonnaise inspired by the smoky flavours of grilled pescado zarandeado; and carne asada, heady layers of steak, chorizo and avocado punctuated by the fatty crunch of three pieces of pork chicharron.

Each dish is set down one after the other, a side here, a taco there, a constant game of Tetris to find enough real estate on the table. Aside from a starter of miniature chorizo sausages with barely a whisper of promised pomegranate, it’s all pretty solid. Oysters Michelada offer a fun take on the beer cocktail, shell rimmed in sweet-spicy chamoy sauce; the smashed potatoes are a faithful, if not improved, replica of the Orinoco original in Mexico City.

Taco + Vino might not quite capture what it’s like to visit a little wine bar in Roma Norte or Condesa, where tacos feel as natural an accompaniment to a chilled red as slivers of anchovy toast do in Sydney. But it is an ambitious melange of everything we’ve come to love about Mexican restaurants in the modern era. The food is considered, the service is warm, and it’s a great place to visit on a Friday night when vibes are high and 𝄒90s hip hop is pumping.

The low-down

Atmosphere: Somewhere between a fancy taqueria and a casual wine bar, with culinary nods to Mexico City staples

Go-to dishes: Oysters Michelada ($4 each); Gaonera taco with The Cape Wagyu MB5 ($17 each); Orinoco smashed fried potatoes ($14)

Drinks: An Australian-forward wine list curated by part-owner and sommelier, Javier Coindreau, with an eye to affordability and two-for-one margaritas all winter.

Cost: About $120 for two, excluding drinks

Good Food reviews are booked anonymously and paid independently. A restaurant can’t pay for a review or inclusion in the Good Food Guide.

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