The area’s restaurant scene is receiving much attention and praise from local and national media due to its quality and variety. Washington Post food critic Tom Sietsema recently reviewed Taqueria Sabor Mixteco, the “sunny new Mexican storefront” near the Wheaton Metro station.
According to The MoCo Show, the restaurant is located in the space formerly occupied by Bolivian restaurant Kantutas, which relocated to a larger location at 2400 University Blvd. West in 2023.
Kantutas and Fire Pit Brazilian BBQ, which recently opened its first brick-and-mortar location at the Solaire Social food hall in downtown Silver Spring, were featured in an episode of the WETA TV series Signature Dish.
Taqueria Sabor Mixteco is co-owned by the trio of Juan Solano, Apolinar Cervantes, and Marisol Gonzales. According to Sietsema, Solano previously worked as a cook at Mixtec and Enriqueta’s in D.C.; Cervantes worked his way up from dishwasher to waiter at Bobby Van’s Steakhouse, where he spent 22 years; and Gonzales, who was once a hostess at a children’s party restaurant in her native Mexico City, works as a nanny when she’s not at the restaurant.
Solano is from La Mixteca, one of eight regions in the Mexican state of Oaxaca; he left Washington for Mexico City in 2008 to run a taqueria for several years before returning to the U.S.
“How delicious to have him back,” Sietsema wrote before lavishing praise on the tacos.
I appreciate whatever meat — zesty chorizo, earthy braised beef tongue, pork sweetened with pineapple — dresses his warm, saucer-size corn tortillas. The canvases — thin enough to fold, thick enough to hoist without tearing — pick up color and texture from cilantro, sliced radishes, sweet chopped onion and your salsa of choice, although a simple spritz of lime is plenty sassy.
In addition to the tacos, Sietsema praised the restaurant’s “two-fisted pleasure” tortas; the chiles rellenos, one of the best in his memory; and the flan, a “sight for sleepy eyes late at night: soothing nursery food no matter your age.”
“The biggest problem I see? Too few diners,” Sietsema wrote. “That might be music to the ears of people who don’t want to raise their voice at lunch or dinner but not to the owners, whose labor of love deserves to play to a larger audience. Frankly, I’d trade the quiet for some noise, even a line out the door. Hence this shout-out.”
The restaurant has a 4.9 average rating on Yelp.
Taqueria Sabor Mixteco is located at 2462 Ennalls Ave. and is open daily from 10:30 a.m. to 10 p.m.
Photo Courtesy of Taqueria Sabor Mixteco