Famed Mexican Chef Enrique Olvera Opens a Taqueria in Brooklyn

Enrique Olvera has served tacos in more ways that you can wrap your head around. The world-renowned Mexican chef has filled tortillas with pineapple butter and three-year-old mole at Mexico City’s Pujol, known for its “taco omakase,” and stuffed them with duck carnitas at Cosme in Manhattan. This week, he’s trying something new.

On Thursday, Olvera is opening a taqueria in Williamsburg (219 Bedford Avenue, near North Fifth Street). Esse Taco is his first restaurant in Brooklyn and his first time running a taqueria in New York. If all goes as planned, it could turn North Brooklyn into one of the best places for tacos right now.

There are four tacos on the menu: rib-eye, al pastor, grilled chicken, and oyster mushroom. The tacos come on warm corn tortillas, which are made downstairs, for about $5 to $6 each. Or, you can order one on a wonderful flour tortilla from Caramelo with chihuahua cheese for the preparation known as a gringa.

Here’s where things get interesting. Unlike the hundreds of other taquerias in town, where taco meats are hacked apart with a cleaver, Esse Taco serves its meats in thin, neat slices. They’re cut into quarter-inch-thick pieces on an electric deli slicer. Once they’ve been marinated and grilled, they might remind you more of a cutlet than al pastor.

Beyond tacos, the menu is full of easter eggs for fans of Olvera’s restaurants. Its al pastor taco comes with a version of the pineapple butter that’s been served at Pujol over the years, and the only dessert — a corn husk ice cream sundae — riffs on Cosme’s famed corn husk meringue. It’s served with vanilla ice cream and a corn mousse on top.

Olvera and his partner, Santiago Perez, had always wanted to open a taqueria — they just weren’t sure when. Two things nudged them along. The first was in 2018 when Pujol moved to a new location and started serving its famed taco omakase, a tasting menu built around tacos. The second was during the pandemic when Atla blocked its front door with a table and started selling takeout tacos to stay afloat.

Their taqueria is surely the coolest thing to happen to Bedford Avenue in years. Esse Taco is located on a commercial corridor of Williamsburg with an Apple Store and a Whole Foods. While ordering at the kiosk, you have an undisturbed view of a funeral home across the street.

This stretch of Brooklyn is shaping up to be one of the city’s best places to eat tacos. Since 2021, the area has been home to Taqueria Ramirez, known for its Mexico City-style tacos. Later this spring, another taqueria — Taqueria El Chato, from the owners of the upscale Mexican restaurant Aldama — is opening nearby.

Esse Taco is open Wednesday to Friday, from 5 to 10 p.m., and Saturday and Sunday, from noon to 11 p.m.