The tacos at El Califa de León aren’t like other tacos. I’m not being metaphorical here. And I’m not talking about the fact that they come from the first taqueria on the planet to win a Michelin star. They’re genuinely different. Simply put: there’s just one piece of meat.
“My grandfather was a butcher, so he knew perfectly well how to select, cut, prepare, and cook meat,” José Andrés Hernández, the third-generation co-owner of El Califa de León who, along with his friend Rodrigo Diaz, is in charge of the taqueria’s brand-new New York outpost.
It was his grandfather, Juan Hernández González, who originally opened El Califa de León in the San Rafael neighborhood of Mexico City in 1968. González is credited with innovating the gaonera taco, comprised of a single piece of tenderloin—a cut not normally included as a taco meat.
The story goes like this: to celebrate a bullfighter friend, Rodolfo Gaona, González served him a special plate of tacos made with tenderloin (the leanest, most expensive cut of beef). They eventually made their way on to the menu and the gaonera-style taco is now widely served in taquerias everywhere. While it can be hard to substantiate that no one before González used tenderloin in a taco, he is certainly credited with popularizing it, as El Califa de León gained a massive following, first in Mexico, then globally, winning a Michelin Star in 2024 and 2025 (they lost it this year).
Juan Hernández González’s issue, Mario Hernández Alonso, has been honoring the restaurant’s methods and traditions since the mid-1980s, when he took over. And today, with his son, José, he’s looking to bring their specialties to Flatiron, where on a hot August day, he sits at a brightly lit table at their brand spanking new location on 23rd St.
“This is a test where we’re going to prove that our brand is strong enough to succeed in a city like New York,” says Mario.
The first step to perfectly grilled meat: the grill. “This is probably one of the largest hoods Captive Air has made in a while,” says Diaz. He points to the exhaust system they installed over the large grill that sits in the center of the 60-seat space. In an operation that sounds traumatic, the owners had to configure the system so that it travels to the back of the restaurant and then up five floors to the roof.
But this vent was key, so that they could have the grill in the middle of the red and white space (designed by Estudio MERO). “The intention of building this was to mimic a Mexican taqueria,” says Diaz. And the space is replete with materials familiar to CDMX: a terracotta floor, tiles everywhere—in white and the taqueria’s now famously recognizable firetruck red—and clay-textured walls. “On balance, we wanted to make how you feel, what you see, what you smell, what you eat—the entire experience—really sensorially beautiful,” says Diaz.
They’ve added an additional false façade (so you can dine “outside” without being nailed by a giant cart from the neighboring Home Depot). “This will feel like part of the street, and people will be able to eat their tacos here as if they were on a terrace,” he says.
Those tacos are, of course, the stars of the show. “It’s the same menu, with some surprises,” Diaz says Those include some special tacos (on Tuesdays), and a vegetarian option not available in Mexico City. “It’s with huitlacoche and poblano peppers,” says José. “Huitlacoche is a mushroom that grows within the corn. It’s very hard to grow and it’s very expensive and the flavor is very particular.”
In Mexico City, El Califa de León’s menu is famously brief: Four tacos—tenderloin, rib, strip, and pork—each served as a single chunk of meat on a corn tortilla pressed immediately before its introduction to the protein, and a choice of red or green salsa. Serving a whole piece of meat, rather than the standard shredded or ground fare commonly found in tacos—isn’t just aesthetic. It’s an insurance policy against mystery meat.
The New York locale will stay faithful to DF’s menu, with one major substitution: “In the U.S., we can access better quality of meat,” says José. Prime meat is available in Mexico, but its cost makes it prohibitive for a taqueria, which are a dime a dozen and expected to be cheap. Not so in New York.
This means that the tacos available at El Califa de León in Flatiron could be superior to what you would get in Mexico City. “People think we’re crazy selling tacos made out of prime meat,” says Diaz.
The determining factor will be their authenticity to the original, going back not just to CDMX, but to the grandpa Juan Hernández González’s cutting and cooking techniques. That’s why Mario Hernández Alonso is here. “He is here is teaching the staff how to cut the meat, how to grill the meat, how to prepare the salsas,” says José. “That’s why we have experts in operations. But at the end, my dad will be super close to guarantee that the New Yorkers receive exactly the same product as we have in Mexico.”
It makes no sense to bring masa (the dough made from nixtamalized corn in authentic tortillas) to the US from Mexico, so, like Eleven Madison Park, the El Califa de Leon team looked to the best New York had to offer: Bushwick’s Sobre Masa. Guided by owners Zach Wangeman and Diana Montano, that tortilleria imports varieties of heirloom corn from small farmers in Oaxaca, milled traditionally by hand-chiseled volcanic rock stones to create a supple, authentic, inimitable masa.
It seems they have all the right ingredients. Including buzz. “We have 1,500 people with a reservation between August and September,” says Diaz. “We have 6,000 people on our wait list.” Forget buzz. That’s clamor.
What about competition? New York has some fantastic taquerias as it is. Taqueria Ramirez and its sister restaurant, Taqueria Carnitas come to mind, both of which are subject to raves, lines, amd more. “Carnitas Ramirez are not just the best carnitas in New York, but one of the best carnitas in the world,” says Diaz. “We don’t do carnitas.”
Alright, they’re not in the same race. But what about the other competition?
“Before we opened, we did a bunch of taco tasting around the city,” says Diaz. “We’ve been to almost every single mainstream and non-mainstream taqueria in New York. That only gave us a little bit more confidence to open our place.”
El Califa de León
20 W 23rd St, New York, NY 10010
califadeleon.com | @califadeleontacos
