The best tacos in Los Angeles, ranked: 10 stands, trucks, and taquerías

The best tacos in Los Angeles aren’t at one place, and anyone who tells you otherwise is selling a T-shirt. (We sell T-shirts. We’re still not going to tell you that.) But if you made us pick one taco, it’s the taco dorado de camarón at Mariscos Jalisco, a fried shrimp taco from a truck parked on East Olympic Boulevard in Boyle Heights. It’s crunchy, hot, cold, sour, and rich in one bite, and nothing else in the city tastes like it. Al pastor fans, hold your fire: Los Güichos is right behind it.

This list is ranked, and we checked every spot on it against current listings and reporting this week. It runs one taco per spot, and each entry says why it beats the one below it. LA decides tacos by style and by neighborhood, not by star rating, so after the top 10 you’ll find the best taco for every style and the best stops by neighborhood. Then comes how to act at a stand so the taquero doesn’t sigh at you.

How we ranked the best tacos in Los Angeles

Los Angeles has thousands of taquerías, trucks, carts, and backyard pop-ups, and the full list of good ones is longer than this page could ever be. So we set rules.

• One taco per spot. Every place gets judged on the thing it does best, not on the whole menu. Leo’s is judged on al pastor. Sonoratown is judged on the flour tortilla.
• The tortilla counts as half the score. A great filling on a stiff, cold, store-bought tortilla loses to a good filling on a fresh one, every time.
• It has to be a specialist. The best taco places in LA usually do one style and nothing else. Seven-page menus didn’t make the cut.
• It has to be open and findable. Stands move, trucks go missing, and restaurants close. We checked every spot here against 2025 and 2026 reporting and listings before publishing. We left a few beloved names off because we couldn’t confirm they’re still where they used to be.
• Los Angeles County, not just the city. East LA, Boyle Heights, and South LA are where most of the best tacos are, and a list that stops at the city limit misses half of them.

What we didn’t do: rank by hype or by line length, or include anything we’d only call “fine.” We don’t list hours or prices either. They change faster than we can check them, and a wrong hour is worse than none. Check the spot’s Instagram before you drive across town.

The 10 best tacos in Los Angeles, ranked

1. Mariscos Jalisco: the taco dorado de camarón (Boyle Heights)

A truck on East Olympic Boulevard in Boyle Heights makes the best taco in Los Angeles. Raúl Ortega’s shrimp taco is a corn tortilla folded around seasoned shrimp and fried until it shatters. Then it gets a ladle of thin, cool tomato salsa and slices of avocado. Hot and cold, crunch and give, all in one bite. It was a longtime favorite of the late critic Jonathan Gold and sat on his 101 Best list for years. Somehow it hasn’t been loved to death.

Why it’s #1: Plenty of spots in this city make a great version of a taco a lot of other people make. Mariscos Jalisco makes a taco that’s simply its own. Other places make fried shrimp tacos. None of them are this one.

Insider detail: Order at least two, because you’ll want the second one before you finish the first. Eat them standing at the truck. They lose their crunch in the time it takes to drive home. There’s also a sit-down Mariscos Jalisco in Pomona if you want a chair and a cold drink.

2. Tacos Los Güichos: al pastor (South LA)

A taco stand in a tire-shop lot on West Slauson Avenue, just east of the 110, carves what plenty of LA’s critics call the city’s best al pastor. The trompo goes up in the evening. The pork comes off in thin, charred, chile-red curls onto small corn tortillas, with a sliver of pineapple and a choice of salsas that are actually different from each other.

Why it’s #2 and not #1: It’s the best version of LA’s most popular taco, and that’s a high bar to clear. But al pastor has real competition across the city (see #4 and #9). Nobody competes with #1.

Insider detail: Bring cash. Come after dark for the trompo. Parking is tight, so plan to circle. If you’re up early on a weekend, the stand does carnitas in the morning too.

3. Sonoratown: the flour tortilla (Downtown LA)

Sonoratown, on East 8th Street in the Fashion District, is the reason half of Los Angeles now has opinions about flour tortillas. The style is from northern Mexico: tortillas stretched thin enough to read through and cooked until they blister, wrapped around carne asada grilled over mesquite. Order a plain asada taco first, then the caramelo, which adds melted cheese.

Why it’s #3: It’s the best tortilla on this list, and that tortilla makes everything inside it better. It sits below Los Güichos because a great flour tortilla is a smaller thrill than a great trompo. It’s not a smaller achievement, though.

Insider detail: The downtown original is the one to visit. Sonoratown also has a counter on San Vicente Boulevard in Mid-City and one on East 3rd Street in Long Beach, handy if you’re west or south. All three are counter-service, with no reservations needed.

4. Leo’s Tacos Truck: al pastor (Mid-City, La Brea and Venice)

Leo’s is the al pastor most Angelenos tried first, and it holds up. The truck in the gas station lot at La Brea and Venice runs a trompo outdoors. The taquero shaves the pork straight onto the tortilla and flicks a piece of pineapple off the top. Watching them do it is half the fun.

Why it’s #4: It’s consistent, it’s in the middle of the city, and the al pastor is excellent. It’s below Los Güichos because Güichos’ pork is a little deeper, crisper, and smokier.

Insider detail: Leo’s runs trucks around the city, but La Brea and Venice is the one people mean when they say “Leo’s.” Trucks do sometimes miss a night, so check Leo’s social accounts before you make a special trip.

5. Guisados: the sampler (Boyle Heights)

Guisados are slow-cooked stews: chicharrón in salsa, tinga, mole poblano, and the rest. The original Guisados, on Cesar E. Chavez Avenue in Boyle Heights, piles them onto thick handmade corn tortillas. Order the sampler. You get a row of small tacos, each a different stew, and you learn something about Mexican home cooking in about four bites.

Why it’s #5: It’s the most generous taco on this list, and the best one for a group that can’t agree. It’s below Leo’s because a guisado taco is about the stew. The top four are about technique you can’t fake at home.

Insider detail: Guisados has opened other locations around the city, but the Boyle Heights original is the one with the most character. It also puts you a few minutes from #1 and #6.

6. Carnitas El Momo: the mixta (Boyle Heights)

A trailer on Fairmount Street in Boyle Heights makes carnitas the old way: pork cooked down in lard until the outside crisps and the inside falls apart. Order the mixta, a mix of cuts with some belly and some crisp skin, and get a little of everything on one tortilla.

Why it’s #6: On a good day this is the best carnitas taco in Los Angeles. It ranks here and not higher because it’s the hardest one on the list to catch. It’s mostly a weekend operation, and it runs until the pot is empty.

Insider detail: Go early and go to the Fairmount Street trailer. Other businesses around LA have used the El Momo name over the years, and the trailer is the one to trust.

7. Los Originales Tacos Árabes de Puebla: the taco árabe (East Olympic Boulevard)

Tacos árabes came out of Puebla, where immigrants from Lebanon and the Middle East brought spit-roasting with them. The pork is marinated in garlic and herbs, roasted on a trompo, and wrapped in pan árabe, a soft, thick flour bread closer to pita than tortilla. It comes with a smoky chipotle salsa. The Villegas family runs this truck on East Olympic Boulevard, and it’s the real thing.

Why it’s #7: It’s the taco on this list you’re least likely to have had before, and it’s excellent. It’s below the carnitas only because the carnitas are a more complete taco on their own.

Insider detail: It’s an evening operation, and not every night. Ask for the especial, which adds melted quesillo and avocado.

8. Teddy’s Red Tacos: the quesataco (the Slauson Avenue original)

Teddy Vasquez helped make Tijuana-style beef birria the taco of the last decade in Los Angeles. He started out selling it from his car. The red taco is a corn tortilla dipped in the stew’s fat, filled with shredded beef, and griddled until the edges crisp. The quesataco adds melted cheese. Dip it in the cup of consomé and don’t apologize.

Why it’s #8: Teddy’s is the reason you can get good birria all over LA now, and the original truck is still worth the trip. It’s not higher because birria has become a crowded field, and the best goat birria in town (see the style list below) beats it on depth.

Insider detail: Go to the original truck on East Slauson Avenue in South LA. Teddy’s now has locations from Venice to Whittier, and they’re handy, but the truck is where the line started.

9. Evil Cooks: al pastor, including the octopus (El Sereno)

Alex Garcia and Elvia Huerta started Evil Cooks as a front-yard pop-up in El Sereno in 2018. Now they have a restaurant a few blocks away on Eastern Avenue at Huntington Drive. Their al pastor is excellent, and they’re known for things nobody else does: a black al pastor trompo, and an octopus al pastor trompo, which turns out to be a great idea.

Why it’s #9: It’s the most inventive taco on the list. It sits below Teddy’s because the classic pork is the best thing they make, and Los Güichos and Leo’s already hold the al pastor spots above it. Go for the octopus, which nobody else in town makes.

Insider detail: Bring a friend and split one of each trompo. El Sereno is a quick drive from Boyle Heights, so it pairs well with #5 or #6.

10. Tacos Don Cuco: adobada off the grill (East LA)

A night stand on South Fetterly Avenue in East Los Angeles serves Tijuana-style tacos built around charcoal. Don Cuco’s adobada (marinated pork) comes off the grill, not a trompo, so it’s smokier and chewier than al pastor. The stand is also credited with bringing birria de lengua (beef tongue birria) to LA. Order one adobada and one lengua.

Why it’s #10: It’s a ten-out-of-ten version of a taco most people have never tried, and that’s what earns it the last spot. It’s not higher because it’s a night-only stand in East LA, which makes it a real commitment if you don’t live nearby.

Insider detail: Don Cuco has opened a few other locations, but the Fetterly Avenue original is the one the city talks about.

The best taco in LA for every style

This is how Angelenos actually decide where to eat: not “where are the best tacos” but “who does the best this.” Here’s our pick for each style, with a backup when the first one’s sold out.

• Al pastor: Tacos Los Güichos in South LA. Backup: Leo’s at La Brea and Venice, or El Chato, a night truck a few blocks north at Olympic and La Brea.
• Mariscos (seafood): Mariscos Jalisco for the fried shrimp taco. For the rest of the sea, see Coni’Seafood below.
• Smoked marlin and Nayarit seafood: Coni’Seafood, the Cossio family’s Nayarit-style restaurant on Imperial Highway in Inglewood (there are also locations in Del Rey and Hermosa Beach). Order the smoked marlin tacos, and if you’re with a group, the pescado zarandeado, a whole butterflied fish grilled and pulled apart into tortillas at the table.
• Sonoran flour tortilla: Sonoratown downtown. Backup, and a new one: El Ruso just opened its first permanent taquería on Ventura Boulevard in Studio City, after years as a truck. Julia Silva still stretches the tortillas to order.
• Goat birria: Tacos y Birria La Única, a cash-only daytime stand on East Olympic Boulevard, for goat birria on handmade tortillas. Get the quesabirria.
• Beef birria and red tacos: Teddy’s original truck on East Slauson. In the Valley, Birrieria Familia Castro on Vineland Avenue in North Hollywood took the top spot on Yelp’s 2025 list of the country’s best taco spots, and it earns it.
• Carnitas: Carnitas El Momo’s Fairmount Street trailer, on a weekend, early.
• Guisados: Guisados in Boyle Heights. Order the sampler.
• Tacos árabes: Los Originales Tacos Árabes de Puebla. There’s no real backup in LA, which is the point.
• Tijuana-style asada: Tacos La Carreta, a Sinaloa-style truck on East 69th Street in North Long Beach, for chorreadas. That’s a tortilla slicked with pork fat and toasted, then loaded with mesquite-grilled asada. Asada is basically the only meat, and that’s all you need. In South LA, the tent operation everyone calls Tire Shop Taqueria (officially Taquería San Miguel) on Avalon Boulevard grills Tijuana-style asada over mesquite and presses the tortillas to order. It’s an evening, cash-only stop.
• Adobada off the grill: Tacos Don Cuco in East LA.
• Heirloom corn: Komal, chef Fátima Juárez’s stall inside Mercado La Paloma, grinds Mexican heirloom corn into masa in-house. Order whatever’s on the comal: the tortilla is the main event.
• Octopus anything: Evil Cooks in El Sereno, off the trompo.

If you’re in San Diego instead, the rules are different and so is the list. We ranked those separately in the best fish tacos in San Diego. LA’s mariscos and SD’s battered fish are cousins, not twins.

Best tacos in Los Angeles by neighborhood

Los Angeles is too big to taco-crawl in one day. Pick a neighborhood and go deep instead.

Boyle Heights and East Olympic Boulevard

This is the best taco neighborhood in the city, and it isn’t close. Cross the river on the 6th Street Viaduct and you’re in it. East Olympic alone gives you Mariscos Jalisco (#1), La Única’s goat birria, and Los Originales’ tacos árabes, all within about a mile of each other. Add Guisados on Cesar Chavez and the El Momo trailer on Fairmount, and you could eat five of the best tacos in Los Angeles without getting on a freeway.

East LA

Just past Boyle Heights, East Los Angeles has Tacos Don Cuco on South Fetterly Avenue for grilled adobada and birria de lengua at night. The stands here turn over fast, so it’s worth driving Whittier and Atlantic boulevards with your eyes open.

South LA

Los Güichos (#2) on West Slauson, Teddy’s original truck on East Slauson, and Tire Shop Taqueria on Avalon all sit within a short drive of each other. Mercado La Paloma, on South Grand Avenue near USC, is the daytime stop: Holbox and Komal are both inside.

Downtown

Sonoratown (#3) is on East 8th Street in the Fashion District. Villa’s Tacos has a stall in Grand Central Market. On Olvera Street, Cielito Lindo has been serving rolled taquitos in avocado sauce since 1934. They’re technically not tacos, but they’re the oldest bite on this page.

Highland Park, El Sereno, and Echo Park

Villa’s Tacos started in Victor Villa’s grandmother’s front yard in Highland Park and now has a restaurant on North Figueroa Street. Evil Cooks (#9) is in El Sereno. In Echo Park, the Taco Zone truck parks at night in the supermarket lot on Alvarado Street, and its suadero is one of the east side’s great late-night tacos.

Mid-City and Hollywood

Leo’s (#4) holds the corner at La Brea and Venice, and El Chato works nights at Olympic and La Brea. If you’re in Hollywood, Leo’s also runs a truck on Sunset Boulevard, and Teddy’s has a Hollywood location. That’s the honest answer to “best tacos in Hollywood”: the good ones come from somewhere else and park there.

The Valley

The two big ones are Birrieria Familia Castro in North Hollywood for beef birria and El Ruso’s new Studio City taquería for Sonoran flour tortillas. Tacos 1986 has Valley locations in Sherman Oaks and Northridge for a reliable Tijuana-style fix.

Long Beach

Tacos La Carreta in North Long Beach is worth the drive from anywhere. Sonoratown’s third location is on East 3rd Street downtown.

We don’t print an LA shirt yet, so if you want something to wear on a crawl, the closest thing in our shop is the California Republic June 1846 Bear Flag Revolt Vintage T-Shirt. It’s a sun-faded bear flag that looks right at a taco stand anywhere from Sylmar to Long Beach.

Taco stand etiquette: how to order like you’ve done this before

Most of the best tacos in Los Angeles come from trucks, carts, and stands, and they run on habits nobody writes down. Here they are, written down.

• Bring cash. More stands take cards now than five years ago, but plenty on this list don’t. Los Güichos, La Única, and Tire Shop are all known as cash-only. Small bills help.
• Order by number and meat. “Three pastor, two asada” works. The taquero will ask ¿con todo? That means onion and cilantro. Say yes.
• Know when the trompo turns. Al pastor is mostly a night thing. Plenty of stands don’t put the trompo up until the evening, and a few run nothing but carnitas or barbacoa in the morning. If you show up at noon for pastor, you might be eating asada.
• Pay attention to the order of operations. Some places want you to pay first; others want you to order, eat, and tell them what you had. Watch the person in front of you.
• Use the salsa bar, but go easy. Taste a drop before you pour. The pale green one is often the hottest. Take radishes, grilled onions, and a lime. Leave the cucumber slices if you don’t want them, but don’t hover.
• Eat it there. A taco has about four minutes before the tortilla goes stiff. Stand at the counter, lean forward, and keep your shirt out of the line of fire.
• Park like a neighbor. Most of these stands sit in somebody’s lot. Don’t block the tire shop, the driveway, or the bus stop.
• Follow them on Instagram. It’s how stands announce they’re closed for a family thing, moved a block, or sold out early.

The famous ones, honestly

Some LA taco spots are famous enough that you’ll be asked about them. Here’s where we land on each.

Holbox: worth it, but it’s a different thing

Gilberto Cetina Jr.’s seafood counter inside Mercado La Paloma has a Michelin star. It earned the star in 2024 and kept it in the 2026 California guide, and it was widely reported as the first Mexican marisquería in the country to earn one. The tacos (smoked kanpachi, octopus in its ink, whatever’s on the seasonal board) are excellent. It’s not on our top 10 because it’s a sit-and-linger seafood restaurant that happens to serve tacos, not a taco spot. It’s also not a cheap lunch. Go when you want a whole meal, and order a taco or two as part of it.

Villa’s Tacos: earned

Victor Villa’s blue-corn tacos with a crisp skirt of cheese went from a Highland Park front yard to a Michelin Bib Gourmand honoree, a brick-and-mortar on Figueroa, and a Grand Central Market stall. The hype is real, and so are the tacos. They miss our top 10 only because the top 10 are specialists, and Villa’s is more of a great all-rounder. Order the trio.

Tacos 1986: convenient, consistent, not a pilgrimage

Tacos 1986 started as a cart in 2018 and now has locations from Westwood to Northridge. The Tijuana-style asada on handmade tortillas is good, and the mushroom taco is one of the better meatless tacos in the city. If one’s near you, go. We wouldn’t drive past three of the spots above to get there.

Cielito Lindo: go for the history

Aurora Guerrero opened the Olvera Street stand in 1934, and her family still runs it. The taquitos in avocado sauce are a piece of Los Angeles, and if you’ve never had them, go. They’re also not tacos, which is why they’re here and not up top.

Frequently asked questions about tacos in Los Angeles

What is the single best taco in Los Angeles?

Our pick is the taco dorado de camarón at Mariscos Jalisco, the truck on East Olympic Boulevard in Boyle Heights. If you only eat al pastor, it’s Tacos Los Güichos on West Slauson.

Where are the best street tacos in Los Angeles?

Boyle Heights and East Olympic Boulevard, then South LA along Slauson Avenue. Most of the best street tacos in Los Angeles come from trucks and stands in those two areas, not from restaurants.

Where should I get tacos in Hollywood?

Leo’s runs a truck on Sunset Boulevard, and Teddy’s Red Tacos has a Hollywood location. For the best version of Leo’s, head south to the original corner at La Brea and Venice.

Are LA taco trucks cash only?

Many are. Card readers are more common than they used to be, but carry cash anyway, especially for stands like Los Güichos, La Única, and Tire Shop Taqueria.

What’s the difference between al pastor and adobada?

Both are chile-marinated pork. Al pastor is roasted on a vertical spit (the trompo) and shaved off in thin slices, often with pineapple. In Tijuana-style taquerías like Don Cuco, adobada can also mean pork cooked on a charcoal grill. That makes it smokier and chewier, with no pineapple.

When is the best time to go?

Seafood and birria stands tend to run in the daytime, and al pastor trompos come out at night. Weekends are best for carnitas and barbacoa. Weeknights are best for short lines.

If you only do one: the East Olympic Boulevard taco crawl

Here’s the day we’d plan for a friend in town. Get to Mariscos Jalisco on East Olympic and order two shrimp tacos. Walk them off, then go to La Única down the boulevard for a goat quesabirria. Head to Guisados on Cesar Chavez and split a sampler. Then go home and rest, because at night Los Originales lights its trompo farther east on Olympic, and the taco árabe is how the day should end.

That’s four of the best tacos in Los Angeles, inside about two miles of Boyle Heights and the eastside, and not one of them takes a reservation. If you want to make a weekend of it, Route 66 ends across town at the Santa Monica Pier. We drove the whole California stretch in Route 66 in California at 100. And if you’re headed east in the fall, the best apple orchards in Oak Glen are about an hour and a half east.

Something we missed? There always is in this city. Tell us, and bring cash.