I crept into San Xavier del Bac Mission’s almost-empty parking lot and rolled toward a makeshift taco stand, which wasn’t much more than a couple of giant soup pots, a cooler, and a hand-painted plywood sign under a white oak ramada.
“Five dollars,” the woman at the metal cash box said, as she handed me a 10-inch fresh fry bread topped with refried beans, lettuce, tomatoes, and a beef stew so spicy the steam tickled my nostrils. The first bite brought all the flavors of the Sonoran desert, from fiery chiltepines to nutty red wheat. A touch of coolness from the lettuce and tomato gave way to the warmer, creamy refried beans, just as a hot wind blew over my face. If a taco ever gave me a sense of place, this was it.
That our regional food has become commoditized is not news. Sushi in St. Louis can be just as good as it is in LA, and you can find a Cuban sandwich in Seattle and Buffalo wings in Honolulu, and so on. But offering a dish that can’t be replicated — which is what Tucson basically claims with its marketing slogan “America’s Best Mexican Food,” — is something we need to try.
Yes, that’s more a marketing slogan than a boast, but if a city’s going to make a bold claim like that, it needs to back it up. I’m here to experience how Mexican food in Tucson as a whole is different from what we can find in any other American city.
Noted for creativity
Tucson takes Mexican food seriously. Not in the traditional, “My abuela’s recipe is better than yours” sense. But in a technical, artistic approach, like Modena, Italy takes Italian food, or Provence, France takes French cuisine. In Tucson, Mexican food is equal parts art and craft, with an openness to differing interpretations that encourages innovation.
It’s a reason Tucson has become the first American city to receive the UNESCO Creative City of Gastronomy designation — it’s known for its innovative use of local ingredients, traditional knowledge, and sustainable practices.
“We got (the designation) because of our agriculture, but also because daily we celebrate the heritage of foods of the region, and our practices of farming,” says Don Guerra, founder of Barrio Bread and the 2022 James Beard Award winner for Outstanding Baker. He’s used a grant from the FDA to grow desert grains in and around Tucson, forging partnerships with local farmers. The results have yielded everything from Mesquite flour to a hybrid “hero” grain.
Around Tucson, you’ll find Guerra’s grains on ingredient lists from breweries to patisseries. On the afternoon I visited, the proprietor of a downtown pasta shop stopped in to pick up flour for that day’s noodles.
“The designation has allowed for just a lot more innovation,” Guerra says. “A lot more people take these chances and try to do something a little bit different.”
Ambassador chefs take a different twist
Among those culinary risk takers is Matt Cable, chef-owner of the intimate Zio Peppe in East Tucson. It’s not Mexican food, per se, as its cozy environs and Sinatra-on-the-stereo ambience give it a distinctly Italian vibe. But the menu is filled with stuff like birria pizza that’s made on his locally sourced wheat dough, tamale polenta, elote corn arancini, and green chili Bolognese.
“We wanted this restaurant to be Tucson focused. I didn’t want to just open a cliché Mexican place,” he says. But Cable, a second-generation Italian-American and native Tucsonan, didn’t want to do cliché Italian either. “I wanted to take the food of my childhood and stuff that I’ve cooked my whole life and incorporate it with the ingredients and flavors around me.”
Cable has become one of Tucson’s Ambassador Chefs, who share Tucson’s ingredients and food heritage with other UNESCO cities around the world. He visited Parma, Italy last year, and says not only were the Italians receptive to tiny Tucson’s creativity, they were also impressed.
Another Tucson twist on Mexican can be found at Tumerico, a mostly-plant-based restaurant from James Beard semifinalist Wendy Garcia. Tumerico looks like a natural foods co-op and a greasy corner taqueria had a Gen-Z love child, where classic Mexican religious art hangs on the walls, and non-alcoholic wine fills the drink cooler.
The dishes don’t rely on animal fats like many traditional Mexican menus, so the savory goodness of lard and skirt steak must be replaced with inventive flavoring. Garcia is a master, as her jackfruit carnitas taste cleander and spicier than the traditional pulled pork, her vegan mole popping with chocolate and chile stronger than its manteca-based predecessor.
“I was a vegan a long time ago, and I wanted good food, because everything was just like tofu this and tofu that,” she says over the joyful buzz of a weekday lunch rush. “I want you to feel the way I used to feel when I was a kid. I want my customers to feel like they’re at home, you know, like they’re family.”
Across town, Tito and Pep is a Modern-American take on Mexican, described to me as “Tucson cuisine.” Chef John Martinez was a James Beard semifinalist in 2022 and landed his restaurant on the New York Times’ list of 50 best restaurants that same year.
The space looks a little like a midcentury modern living room adorned in desert flora, where mesquite branches are mounted above aquamarine banquets and curved back chairs. The small, seasonal menu is a spicier version of the “New American” stuff you find at many chef-driven U.S. restaurants, like grilled octopus with salsa matcha; summer vegetable posole verde; Sea of Cortez shrimp with masa dumplings. It’s inventive, but not always popular with Mexican-food purists. Over my few days in Tucson, I got mixed reviews from locals, though everyone I met involved in the food scene held it up as one of the city’s best spots.
Desert grains make for world-class tortillas
Tucson’s not without its traditional taquerias either. In South Tucson you’ll be lured into El Taco Rustico by the aroma of smoked brisket tacos. The flavor lives up to the smell, especially when combined with homemade salsa from its salsa bar. Less than two miles away you’ll find a music-themed taco tent filled with Spanish rock music at Tacos Apson. It’s named after the band El Apson, and the shaded outdoor dining area is plastered with concert posters and album covers. The beef short rib taco is the star of the show, though locals will tell you to get the lengua. Their tacos are all served on flour tortillas that’ll change the way you look at tacos.
That’s because unlike the puffy, fajita-style flour tortillas you find in grocery stores and sports bars, the tortillas on bakery shelves and in taqueria kitchens in Tucson are flaky and crispy. Ground from the same desert grains that make everything bread-based in Tucson exceptional, they hold up a taco without filling your stomach.
“This is where flour tortillas were born,” Cable educates me. “About 300 years ago, Father Kino, who was Italian, came to this area and brought winter wheat. So, when the corn was gone and they couldn’t grow it, they had something that adapted to the desert.”
The winter wheat tortillas were made like their corn counterparts, and the thin, Tucson-style flour tortilla was born. Roll by any South Tucson bakery and try one hot off the press, and you may be spoiled on tortillas for the rest of your life.
Great tortillas do not make a Mexican food mecca, but they give the city a leg up in any discussion of America’s best Mexican food. “Best” is always a relative term, but after a few days of dining around this desert city you’ll find a uniqueness in the Sonoran-style cuisine.
“I’ll have Mexican food in Southern California. I’ll have Mexican food in El Paso, I’ll have some Mexican food in New Mexico. But it’s never the same,” Cable says. “It’s always good, but it’s never…” he pauses for a while looking for the right word. “It’s just different, man.”
