Owner Leticia Sánchez started making moles with her grandmother in Oaxaca when she was five years old, and the years of experience show in the expertly balanced mole coloradito that pools around her pork enchiladas, and in dishes like the molotes (fried masa dumplings filled with potato and chorizo), drowned in smoky morita pepper and avocado salsas, all served on brightly hued ceramics. Sanchez also serves weekly specials like rockfish ceviche, and banana leaf green mole tamales are available during the winter. There’s a few indoor seats at El Cabrito and a few tables on a covered patio behind the restaurant.

Jade Yamazaki Stewart

This low-key White Center restaurant has an intimidatingly long menu with protein options ranging from salmon to tripe. Don’t sweat it though — everything is great here because El Catrin does all the little things right. The tortillas are ideally pliable and lightly charred, and the salsa verde provides a bright, tangy spike of flavor. The only downside to El Catrin is you probably don’t have room for sopes, tacos, and a plate of succulent puerco en salsa verde. –Harry Cheadle

Harry Cheadle

At this casual restaurant, diners can eat a whole roasted chicken with rice, beans, and tortillas while catching the day’s soccer match on television. Tortas, sauced-up chiles rellenos, enchiladas, and pozole teeming with tender pork are all excellent options. The whole chicken, covered in red adobo sauce, is bound to make a mess no matter what, so forgo the napkins and tear off the chunks of tender meat with the chewy flour tortillas, dip it in sauce, and enjoy.

This Columbia City restaurant from Jack’s Barbecue owner Jack Timmons offers his signature Texas brisket in tacos and enchiladas, serves with one of the better mezcal selections in the city. It also recently started serving brunch with options like huevos rancheros, and yes, Texas-style breakfast tacos. While there are some traditional Mexican dishes like ceviche here, the standouts are the Tex-Mex options.

All those boffins trying to engineer lab-grown meat in the aim of satiating the world’s carnivorous tastes should pop down to this vegan restaurant in the old Il Corvo space and try Daniel Rojo’s soy al pastor. The achiote paste and vinegar marinade gives it heat, pineapples give it a sweetness, and the grill gives it a satisfying crispiness. Great fake meat is here, people, we’ve done it, it’s over, you can shut down your startups now. –Harry Cheadle

Suzi Pratt

This South Lake Union restaurant is an offshoot of Maiz, a Pike Place tortilleria that has been selling nixtamalized heirloom corn tortillas since 2021. You can come to Maiz Molino for those tortillas — packed with so much flavor you could eat them warm by themselves — or the tacos filled with rotating options including chicken mole, pork adobada, and beef asada. But you can also come here for dinner Thursday to Sunday and try items like pork cheeks in mole or short ribs over heirloom masa grits. The extensive drinks menu here even features snake venom–infused sotol, if you are willing to pay $30 for a shot.

Harry Cheadle

This Lower Queen Anne Mexican restaurant receives shockingly little recognition considering the breadth and consistent quality of its menu. The red pozole here is deeply satisfying with big, juicy, tender pieces of pork, and the green ceviche is balanced and generously portioned. Go on a weekday lunch and you’ll have the restaurant almost all to yourself.

Having come a long way from 2011 when owner Roberto Salmerón first opened up his tiny Cap Hill storefront, this beloved taqueria now boasts four locations and mass appeal among families, tech bros, and everyone in between. But just because everyone knows about it doesn’t mean it isn’t great! The star of the menu is undoubtedly the savory-sweet house taco made with adobada (marinated in adobo) pork, cheese, onion, guacamole, and topped with state-sized grilled pineapple for a tangy, juicy finish. For any vegetarians looking to add some “oomph” to meatless items, the pineapple also pairs well with the nopal mulita. Night owls be advised that only the Cap Hill and SLU locations are open till 10 p.m. while all other locations close up at 9.

Charlie Lahud-Zahner

Steak is the focus of this north Capitol Hill Mexican restaurant, where big piles of tender, perfectly cooked beef rule the menu. Standouts include the 25-day dry-aged New York strip, topped with from-scratch salsa, and the Aguja Norteña, a hunk of wagyu accompanied by a cactus salad. The restaurant also serves a number of dishes besides steak, like tacos with a choice of meat (including beef birria).

With lattes, soul-soothing burritos, and a miniscule seating area bursting with potted plants and porcelain statuettes, Wallingford’s Mas Cafe is an ideal bohemian hobbit hole. Originally a takeout operation that opened in August 2020, this cafe is now an ideal laid-back breakfast spot. Get the slightly spicy chorizo burrito: Packed with potatoes, cheddar cheese, pico de gallo, and a generous portion of peppers and caramelized onions, it gives off a Tex-Mex texture and flavor. Since seating is often limited, have a backup plan to make a picnic of it at nearby Gas Works Park. 

Frelard Tamales used to be a walk-up window in Green Lake but as of August it’s a full-service restaurant inside Fremont’s El Sueñito Brewing (which owners Osbaldo Hernandez and husband Denny Ramey also run). You can still get the comforting tamales with plenty of veggie and vegan options that made this place famous, but do yourself a solid and check out the expanded menu. The carnitas tacos are meaty and rich but balanced by a sharply acidic salsa, but the real star are the corn tortillas, which are crisp but still pliable and so, so satisfying to bite into. –Harry Cheadle

Harry Cheadle

Ballard denizens have been lining up at this Mexican restaurant since it opened in 2003 to sample the pools of rich, savory-sweet mole over chicken; the hand-crushed guacamole; the breaded steak; and a spirit list with more than 40 types of mezcal. Though there have been newer, trendier offshoots (like El Mezcalito in Queen Anne), it’s difficult to replicate the intimacy of the original.

In 2023 Janet Becerra’s hyped-up pop-up turned into a permanent restaurant, and it’s a good thing it did because there’s no Mexican place in the city doing what she does. Maitake mushroom tostadas, coho salmon served in a perfectly spiced cascabel chile sauce, creamy Earl Grey horchata made with black rice — the rotating dinner menu turns familiar dishes into fine-dining stars. You could have a great meal just on the tortillas though, which are made in-house from masa nixtamalized in-house. 

Harry Cheadle

Warm tortillas, tender barbequed meats, pickled toppings for acidity/texture, and salsa for the spice —Mexican Seoul would be identical to every other taqueria if everything wasn’t different. Permanently parked outside Project 9 Brewing in Maple Leaf, this Mexican-Korean fusion food truck is a culinary experiment with intriguing results. For example, the “Al Paskor” filling features spit roasted marinated korean pork with a smoky flavor that’s familiar yet slightly perplexing. Toppings like soy pickled onions, kimchi pico de gallo, and their vibrant yellow pickled daikon will have any guest trying to make sense of novel combinations of fermented vegetables and rich, fatty meats. Indoor and outdoor seating is plentiful at Project 9, but may be limited due to Mexican Seoul’s recent popularity.

Mexican Seoul

The party is in the back at this Greenwood grocery store, which doubles as a restaurant. Get the quesadillas with tinga de res, enormous carnitas tacos, or come by on weekends when there's an even fuller array of soups, meats, and crispy tacos, including barbacoa.

This food truck chain has three locations in the north end and one in West Seattle, which is good, because you never want to be too far away from one of the city’s most reliable takeout Mexican options. The tortas and burritos are each good for a meal and a half (or half a meal if you’re bulking), the Los Gallos Rojos (three tortillas stuffed with chicken) showcases El Camion’s tender meat, and the salsa selection is top-notch — you’ll want to get the chipotle and at least two others. –Harry Cheadle

Owner Leticia Sánchez started making moles with her grandmother in Oaxaca when she was five years old, and the years of experience show in the expertly balanced mole coloradito that pools around her pork enchiladas, and in dishes like the molotes (fried masa dumplings filled with potato and chorizo), drowned in smoky morita pepper and avocado salsas, all served on brightly hued ceramics. Sanchez also serves weekly specials like rockfish ceviche, and banana leaf green mole tamales are available during the winter. There’s a few indoor seats at El Cabrito and a few tables on a covered patio behind the restaurant.

Jade Yamazaki Stewart

This low-key White Center restaurant has an intimidatingly long menu with protein options ranging from salmon to tripe. Don’t sweat it though — everything is great here because El Catrin does all the little things right. The tortillas are ideally pliable and lightly charred, and the salsa verde provides a bright, tangy spike of flavor. The only downside to El Catrin is you probably don’t have room for sopes, tacos, and a plate of succulent puerco en salsa verde. –Harry Cheadle

Harry Cheadle

At this casual restaurant, diners can eat a whole roasted chicken with rice, beans, and tortillas while catching the day’s soccer match on television. Tortas, sauced-up chiles rellenos, enchiladas, and pozole teeming with tender pork are all excellent options. The whole chicken, covered in red adobo sauce, is bound to make a mess no matter what, so forgo the napkins and tear off the chunks of tender meat with the chewy flour tortillas, dip it in sauce, and enjoy.

This Columbia City restaurant from Jack’s Barbecue owner Jack Timmons offers his signature Texas brisket in tacos and enchiladas, serves with one of the better mezcal selections in the city. It also recently started serving brunch with options like huevos rancheros, and yes, Texas-style breakfast tacos. While there are some traditional Mexican dishes like ceviche here, the standouts are the Tex-Mex options.

All those boffins trying to engineer lab-grown meat in the aim of satiating the world’s carnivorous tastes should pop down to this vegan restaurant in the old Il Corvo space and try Daniel Rojo’s soy al pastor. The achiote paste and vinegar marinade gives it heat, pineapples give it a sweetness, and the grill gives it a satisfying crispiness. Great fake meat is here, people, we’ve done it, it’s over, you can shut down your startups now. –Harry Cheadle

Suzi Pratt

This South Lake Union restaurant is an offshoot of Maiz, a Pike Place tortilleria that has been selling nixtamalized heirloom corn tortillas since 2021. You can come to Maiz Molino for those tortillas — packed with so much flavor you could eat them warm by themselves — or the tacos filled with rotating options including chicken mole, pork adobada, and beef asada. But you can also come here for dinner Thursday to Sunday and try items like pork cheeks in mole or short ribs over heirloom masa grits. The extensive drinks menu here even features snake venom–infused sotol, if you are willing to pay $30 for a shot.

Harry Cheadle

This Lower Queen Anne Mexican restaurant receives shockingly little recognition considering the breadth and consistent quality of its menu. The red pozole here is deeply satisfying with big, juicy, tender pieces of pork, and the green ceviche is balanced and generously portioned. Go on a weekday lunch and you’ll have the restaurant almost all to yourself.

Having come a long way from 2011 when owner Roberto Salmerón first opened up his tiny Cap Hill storefront, this beloved taqueria now boasts four locations and mass appeal among families, tech bros, and everyone in between. But just because everyone knows about it doesn’t mean it isn’t great! The star of the menu is undoubtedly the savory-sweet house taco made with adobada (marinated in adobo) pork, cheese, onion, guacamole, and topped with state-sized grilled pineapple for a tangy, juicy finish. For any vegetarians looking to add some “oomph” to meatless items, the pineapple also pairs well with the nopal mulita. Night owls be advised that only the Cap Hill and SLU locations are open till 10 p.m. while all other locations close up at 9.

Charlie Lahud-Zahner

Steak is the focus of this north Capitol Hill Mexican restaurant, where big piles of tender, perfectly cooked beef rule the menu. Standouts include the 25-day dry-aged New York strip, topped with from-scratch salsa, and the Aguja Norteña, a hunk of wagyu accompanied by a cactus salad. The restaurant also serves a number of dishes besides steak, like tacos with a choice of meat (including beef birria).

With lattes, soul-soothing burritos, and a miniscule seating area bursting with potted plants and porcelain statuettes, Wallingford’s Mas Cafe is an ideal bohemian hobbit hole. Originally a takeout operation that opened in August 2020, this cafe is now an ideal laid-back breakfast spot. Get the slightly spicy chorizo burrito: Packed with potatoes, cheddar cheese, pico de gallo, and a generous portion of peppers and caramelized onions, it gives off a Tex-Mex texture and flavor. Since seating is often limited, have a backup plan to make a picnic of it at nearby Gas Works Park. 

Frelard Tamales used to be a walk-up window in Green Lake but as of August it’s a full-service restaurant inside Fremont’s El Sueñito Brewing (which owners Osbaldo Hernandez and husband Denny Ramey also run). You can still get the comforting tamales with plenty of veggie and vegan options that made this place famous, but do yourself a solid and check out the expanded menu. The carnitas tacos are meaty and rich but balanced by a sharply acidic salsa, but the real star are the corn tortillas, which are crisp but still pliable and so, so satisfying to bite into. –Harry Cheadle

Harry Cheadle

Ballard denizens have been lining up at this Mexican restaurant since it opened in 2003 to sample the pools of rich, savory-sweet mole over chicken; the hand-crushed guacamole; the breaded steak; and a spirit list with more than 40 types of mezcal. Though there have been newer, trendier offshoots (like El Mezcalito in Queen Anne), it’s difficult to replicate the intimacy of the original.

In 2023 Janet Becerra’s hyped-up pop-up turned into a permanent restaurant, and it’s a good thing it did because there’s no Mexican place in the city doing what she does. Maitake mushroom tostadas, coho salmon served in a perfectly spiced cascabel chile sauce, creamy Earl Grey horchata made with black rice — the rotating dinner menu turns familiar dishes into fine-dining stars. You could have a great meal just on the tortillas though, which are made in-house from masa nixtamalized in-house. 

Harry Cheadle

Warm tortillas, tender barbequed meats, pickled toppings for acidity/texture, and salsa for the spice —Mexican Seoul would be identical to every other taqueria if everything wasn’t different. Permanently parked outside Project 9 Brewing in Maple Leaf, this Mexican-Korean fusion food truck is a culinary experiment with intriguing results. For example, the “Al Paskor” filling features spit roasted marinated korean pork with a smoky flavor that’s familiar yet slightly perplexing. Toppings like soy pickled onions, kimchi pico de gallo, and their vibrant yellow pickled daikon will have any guest trying to make sense of novel combinations of fermented vegetables and rich, fatty meats. Indoor and outdoor seating is plentiful at Project 9, but may be limited due to Mexican Seoul’s recent popularity.

Mexican Seoul

The party is in the back at this Greenwood grocery store, which doubles as a restaurant. Get the quesadillas with tinga de res, enormous carnitas tacos, or come by on weekends when there's an even fuller array of soups, meats, and crispy tacos, including barbacoa.

This food truck chain has three locations in the north end and one in West Seattle, which is good, because you never want to be too far away from one of the city’s most reliable takeout Mexican options. The tortas and burritos are each good for a meal and a half (or half a meal if you’re bulking), the Los Gallos Rojos (three tortillas stuffed with chicken) showcases El Camion’s tender meat, and the salsa selection is top-notch — you’ll want to get the chipotle and at least two others. –Harry Cheadle