Opened: November 2024
What’s better than tacos? Er, maybe tacos and vinyl records? That’s the enticing premise behind this Downtown taqueria and listening lounge from first-time restaurateurs Michael Immordino and Geoff Smith. As CBGB-era rock and New Wave plays on the house turntable, in the pleasant bar-centered indoor-outdoor space that formerly occupied Little O’s on McDowell Road, slurp down a lime-y house margarita (made with “silver” tequila but fairly priced at $10) or tasty passion fruit mule ($11) from the Latin-centric cocktail list; then dive into middlebrow Mexican fare like chipotle-laced Caesar salad ($13, extremely anchovy-forward, which I enjoyed) and zippy chips and queso ($12). True to its name, the Le Taco menu is taco-dominated, with about a dozen on offer. The Classico ($5.95) is basically the Sunday family-table taco of your youth – cumin-y seasoned ground beef in a house-made shell with the traditional iceberg lettuce medley, which I nibbled to the last. There’s also good, greasy barbacoa ($7.50, topped with salsa verde), Baja-style mahi mahi ($7.50, a tad under-fried) and New York strip ($7.95, drizzled with sriracha crema), to name a few.
Friendly servers and a wall of classic LPs complete the urbane vibe, but flexibility and fulfillment might be an issue in the early going: The menu’s awesome-sounding Hatch green chile smash burger ($15) is only available Wednesdays and Sundays, and the menu’s two most intriguing tacos, pork belly ($6.50) and duck ($6.95), were 86’d on both my visits.
Wild Card: Play your own vinyl! Wednesdays are guest DJ nights, but if you bring your first-press The Dark Side of the Moon, they’ll spin it most any time.
521 W. McDowell Rd., 480-397-2403, letacobar.com
