16 of Minneapolis-St. Paul’s Best Spots for Mexican Food

Savvy diners know that some of the best local eats can be found in lunch counters tucked away in the corners of grocery stores. So, it is with Alborada Market, a full-service Latin mercado that doubles as a taqueria and restaurant, serving some of the area’s most traditionally made tacos. Its lengua (beef tongue) tacos are particularly good, but anything from asada to carnitas to barbacoa will likely hit the spot.

A staple of Minnesota’s Latin dining world since its opening in 1979, El Burrito Mercado is a one-stop shop for grocery shopping, sit-down dining, catering, takeout, and events. It's also a three-generation restaurant story that is steeped in hard work and good food, and a humble, approachable, widely loved dining landmark in Minnesota.

El Taco Riendo has accumulated a loyal following since its 2009 opening in Northeast Minneapolis, thanks to an expansive menu, generous portions, and reasonable prices. Generously portioned tortas (including a $75 grande version that feeds a crowd) also set El Taco Riendo apart from many of its competitors.

Homi’s appeal is hidden right in its name; the little University Avenue spot feels like home, from the warm service to the scratch-made food. The tradition of Mexican soup-making is alive and well here, one of the best metro spots to try a restorative bowl of pozole (pork and hominy) or menudo (tripe and other offal) — a fitting complement to the pho-centric menus of its Vietnamese neighbors up and down the street.

A genuinely dazzling array of desserts overwhelms visitors’ senses as they step into La Michoacana Purépecha. While the emphasis is on paletas and other frozen desserts (including a wide range of Mexican-style ice creams and milkshakes), customers can also grab savory treats like Dorilocos (bags of tortilla chips topped with a variety of vibrant ingredients, including tamarind candy, lime juice, chamoy, jicama, pickled pork skin, Japanese peanuts and hot sauce). 

If you’re new to Mexican ice cream shops, the light, clean elegance of a strawberry paleta is a terrific way to start, but the menu encourages and rewards exploration.

Located in the heart of Minneapolis’s taco hot spot, La Perla is known for its house-made tortillas and serious pozole (hominy soup). One of the shop’s two locations is at Mercado Central, a small yet lively mecca for visitors who love Mexican and Latin American food, drinks and culture.

The full name of La Poblanita clues shrewd diners in right away; it widely markets and distributes some of the region’s best-regarded tortillas. And they’re no slouches when it comes to filling those flour or masa discs, either; the restaurant’s street tacos come correct, and many of their masa (corn tortilla) dishes are among their most popular, including the huarache and tlacoyos.

Located on Minneapolis’s food-centric Central Avenue Northeast, Los Cactus is one of the metro’s “next generation”-style taquerias and Mexican restaurants. Taking inspiration from mass-market eateries such as Chipotle, it offers well-organized, brightly lit, customer-driven service that allows for a variety of formats (burritos, bowls, gorditas, etc.) and a range of authentic Mexican meat styles. Don’t overlook the chimichanga, which is massive, crispy and legitimately delicious.

A mainstay of Minneapolis’ Latin and Mexican food scene since 1999, Manny’s Tortas is the life’s work of Manny Gonzalez, whose cheerful demeanor and unbreakable work ethic have helped anchor the culinary scene at Midtown Global Market since its founding. The menu is simple: big, crispy, meaty, delicious Mexican sandwiches.

Maya Cuisine is part of the ambitious string of restaurants that line Central Avenue in Minneapolis, which is second only to East Lake Street in terms of the number of taquerias. Specializing in scratch-made Mexican food (including hand-made tortillas) and recognized by several different media organizations since its founding in 2012, Maya Cuisine offers some lesser-known favorites, including cochinita pibil (Yucatán-syle barbecued pork) and mariscos (Mexican-style seafood dishes.)

After Nixta became regionally famous for its fantastic takeout food and painstakingly made, remarkably good homemade tortillas, Gustavo and Kate Romero branched out into a brick-and-mortar breakthrough called Oro. It quickly earned a reputation as one of the most innovative restaurants within the Latin food sphere. Eater Twin Cities declared it 2023’s restaurant of the year, Bon Appétit named it one of 2024’s best new restaurants, and the James Beard Foundation shortlisted it for a similar award. 

Oro describes itself as “a full-service masa kitchen” that promotes corn as the star of its show. Expect to see it featured in exceptional dishes that range from the comfortably familiar (tacos and tostadas) to regional deep cuts from the various states of Mexico (chochoyotes de yuca, tlayuda de vegetales, sopa de calabaza). 

Can’t snag a reservation? Nixta opened a new food hall stand at Graze in 2025. Tixtli is casual yet contemporary, featuring an abbreviated menu of pork belly, beef tongue, shrimp, and butternut squash tacos, as well as a masa-forward mix of quesabirria, molotes, ceviche tostadas, and chips with several different stellar dips.

Charcoal-grilled chicken is the specialty of East Lake Street’s Pollo Movil, and until you’ve had their fire-roasted take on chicken flanked by ample sides of rice and beans, you haven’t really tasted what this meat is truly capable of. The restaurant also offers carne asada and tacos al pastor, but its chicken combos (with limes, rice, salsa, and beans) are a remarkably tasty and complete meal experience.

As its name implies, Taco Taxi is all about mobility; you can visit the restaurant’s headquarters in the heart of East Lake Street’s taco district, or you can hit any of the various Taco Taxi trucks parked around town. Uber-steaky asada, and a complex, umami-forward salsa set these street tacos apart from the competition, and the restaurant’s grill masters work the food and the customer service like the practiced pros that they are.

Most taquerias have a style or two on lockdown, but you can’t always pick it out by glancing at a menu. (If you have to guess, however, the first one listed is often the right answer.) There’s no such challenge at Taqueria La Hacienda; it proudly touts itself as “The House of Authentic Tacos al Pastor.” This famous style, known as a gyros-like import from Lebanon to Mexico, can be found all over town at most taquerias, but nobody does it as consistently and as deliciously as La Hacienda.

Taqueria & Birrieria Las Cuatro Milpas is one of the region’s pioneers of quesabirria, serving ridiculously cheesy, crunchy tacos stuffed with tender shredded beef and paired with a rich consommé for dipping. Mostly unknown in Minnesota before 2020, quesabirria has since become a national trend, and Las Cuatro Milpas remains one of the area’s most respected purveyors. The restaurant also offers an expansive lineup of aguas frescas — typically 6 to 10 flavors, from horchata to pineapple — rather than just a few.

It’s hard to top the easy-to-find Taqueria Los Ocampo in terms of being a well-rounded Mexican restaurant. While tacos sit at the top of its menu, it’s a great place to order preposterously hot sizzling fajitas, the stuffed masa cakes known as huaraches (and their stuffed cousins, the huarachazos), tortas, alambres, and more. In contrast to more barebones competitors, most Ocampo locations also offer table service.

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