What started as a soupy hangover cure has become the latest taco trend.
Birria tacos have exploded in popularity in recent months, popping up all over New York, New Jersey and beyond. Their distinctive fluffy red tortillas, spicy beef and accompanying soup for dipping (that the beef was braised in) make them equal parts delicious, fun and Instagram-able. The tortillas are made with nixtamal, a dried corn, and have a thicker, chewier consistency. They are fried in the fat rendered from the chili-laden soup, giving them their bright red hue, a kick of spice and a crisp edge while still being chewy.
And what started as a booth at a Brooklyn food festival has become one of New Jersey’s most popular new Mexican restaurants, riding the birria wave.
Patrick Flammia and his wife, Kim Martin-Flammia, are owners of Chofi Taco in Union City, where Garden State taco fiends are lining up for the spicy, broth-laden dish.
“It’s supposed to cure hangovers, so they make it on Sundays after a night of going out or whatever,” Flammia says.
Birria tacos have decades of history in Mexico, having started as a spicy, meat and chile-filled soup in Jalisco, in the southwestern region of the country. Then people in Tijuana started taking the meat out of the soup, putting it on tortillas and serving them alongside the soup to dip in.
The Flammias, who over the years have worked in some the most elite restaurants in New York like Carbone and Jean-Georges, fell in love with the dish while visiting Los Angeles and then on trips to Martin-Flammia’s native Mexico.
They had a hunch that the New Jersey food scene would feel the same. So they started making birria tacos at weekly Brooklyn pop-up food festival Smorgasburg.
“We were like, ‘how do we get out of working our restaurant jobs and owning our own thing?’ Flammia said. “We went from fine dining to making tacos in a parking lot. It’s been a trip.”
After earning rave reviews in Brooklyn, the couple finally got a brick and mortar restaurant in Union City March 15 — the day before COVID-19 shut down New Jersey restaurants. The timing was far from ideal, but as things started to open up a few months later, word got out that Chofi was serving the trendy taco.
“Summertime came and people start traveling a little bit more,” Flammia said. “And that’s kind of where all of a sudden we went from doing like five people a day the the lines that we have now.”
Chofi has somewhat limited hours, open from 2 to 8 p.m. Wednesday and Thursday, 2 to 9 p.m. on Friday and Saturday and 11 a.m. to 6 p.m. on Sunday. Ordering online is recommended; they may be sold out if you make the trip to order in person.
Understandably so. The tacos are visually appealing and stark textural change — a happy medium of crunch and chew from the bright red tortillas — along with a spice blend including dried chili peppers, cinnamon and cloves that makes the tacos flavorful but not overwhelming. Dipping them in the accompanying soup (called consomé) is fun and adds even more flavor.
And when you’re done with your tacos, you have soup with bits of beef in it to finish the meal — genius!
Flammia and his wife thought they might be onto something by being one of the first restaurants to bring birria to New Jersey — there are others, but none have reached Chiofi’s popularity. They didn’t quite see this coming.
“When we like first discovered it, we were like, ‘Oh my God, if we bring it to the East Coast, it’s going to start something or be something and it was,” Flammia said. “We were right in our gut hunch and and did it because now it’s everywhere.”
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Jeremy Schneider may be reached at jschneider@njadvancemedia.com. Tell us your coronavirus story or send a tip here.
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