La Taqueria Opens in Greenwich: Killer Tacos & More

If you turn onto Greenwich Avenue and blink, there’s a chance you blew right by La Taqueria, one of the street’s newest additions where tacos are front-and-center. 

Before we dive into the stellar tacos at La Taqueria, you should get to know some of its backstory. That all starts with chef/owner Dennis Lake, who, like his restaurant, is a newcomer to Greenwich as a resident, but not as a stranger entirely. Years ago, he was a sous chef at Restaurant 64 before it was The Ginger Man.

Lake, though, credits the honing of his craft as a chef to stops at New York City hotspots. He worked at Rosa Mexicano for over a decade and after that he was a partner at Glaze Teriyaki for eight years-plus. “What I learned at Rosa Mexicano, I knew I would ultimately revisit it sometime in my career,” he says. “I’m adopted Korean! But I do Mexican food really well and I’ve been a chef all my life. I love tacos; it’s my favorite food.”

Lake left Glaze Teriyaki because as a boss, he found himself delegating too much, and got bored. He also wanted to do something that was exclusively his. Pair all of that with growing tired of city life, and he began a search for a space to open a taqueria. “I looked in Hoboken, then because I used to live in Yonkers, I checked out White Plains, then Tarrytown, but there was already something there, The Taco Project,” he says. “Natural progression led me to Stamford, nothing jumped out, then I thought, ‘Hell, why not Greenwich?’” 

Stuck in permit purgatory for six months starting in March, Lake officially opened La Taqueria in September. 

Lake will tell you that his concept is “100% fast casual,” but fast doesn’t mean hard shell, ground beef, and melted cheese Taco Bell fare. Everything on Lake’s straightforward menu is fresh. 

Hand slapped guacamole and chips, grilled street corn, and chipotle BBQ glazed wings are some of the five small plates. Another is arroz y frijoles—rice and beans, if you need translation—that aren’t an afterthought. An order of Lake’s tomato and herb seasoned rice with slow-cooked black beans and cotija cheese will result in spoon to dish scraping sounds. 

As for the tacos, each $4 - $5 handheld is packed full. Your choices are grilled chicken, a melt-in-your-mouth hangar steak carne asada, garlicky carnitas that’s just fatty enough, achiote seasoned slow-roasted pibil style pork, and a fish taco using a hefty piece of cod that’s beer battered and deep fried to a perfect crunch. For vegetarians there’s a grilled cactus taco. The house-made salsas that range from tame, to smoky, to lingering heat all complement the tacos and are fun to mix, match, and dunk any leftover chips in. 

What you’ll notice immediately is La Taqueria’s use of blue corn tortillas. The masa is made daily and delivered fresh by Tortilleria Nixtamal in Queens, a company that’s relied upon heavily by both taquerias and fine dining establishments. If you scope out their nixtamalization process using non-GMO corn, you’ll get why they’ve got a great product and reputation. 

To wash down what’ll inevitably be more than one blue corn taco, there are a trio of agua frescas (tamarind, horchata, hibiscus), Mexican sodas, and coffee. 

“We also have the smallest bar on The Avenue!” Lake says, jokingly. It’s where they serve appropriate taco sidekicks like Modelo, Corona, 10 or so wines, and fresh juice margaritas.

The end of the menu is a sweet one; there’s vanilla bean flan, Mexican chocolate chip cookies, and the ever satisfying tres leches cake, though not an overly sweet version, topped with homemade strawberry compote that adds a tarty pop. 

Since opening day, Lake has seen plenty of foot traffic from Greenwich Avenue shuffle in to enjoy tacos, but because of permit holdups, and well over a year of opening anticipation, non-locals or infrequent avenue visitors may not be aware that tacos—and more—await them inside. “Some people don’t know that I’m open yet, but I am!” Lake says.

Consider yourselves aware.

10 Greenwich Avenue; Greenwich
(203) 992-1199; https://taqueriact.com/