Two Portland Mexican restaurants earn national praise from The New York Times

Two Portland Mexican restaurants earn national praise from The New York Times

Published 4:00 am Tuesday, August 18, 2026

Ki’ikibáa and Mis Tacones are among 41 restaurants nationwide highlighted in The New York Times’ new guide to great Mexican food

Portland’s Mexican food scene has received another major national endorsement, with two Northeast Portland restaurants earning spots on a new list from The New York Times celebrating some of the country’s greatest Mexican restaurants.

Ki’ikibáa and Mis Tacones are among 41 restaurants featured in the Times’ “41 of the Greatest Mexican Restaurants Across the United States,” a collection that looks beyond familiar tacos and Tex-Mex to highlight the regional and cultural range of Mexican and Mexican American cooking.

The Times emphasizes that the list is not a ranking. Instead, its reporters, editors and photographers spent more than a year traveling around the country in search of restaurants that help tell the story of Mexican cooking in America today.

For Portland, the result is a fun pairing: one restaurant centered on the cuisine of Mexico’s Yucatán Peninsula, and another rooted in East Los Angeles Chicano food and entirely vegan.

Ki’ikibáa puts Yucatán in the spotlight

At Ki’ikibáa, chef Manny Lopez’s Yucatecan cooking is the star.

The Northeast 82nd Avenue restaurant has already become one of Portland’s most acclaimed destinations for regional Mexican food.

The Times’ recommendation is clear: while the restaurant’s burritos have plenty of fans, diners should look beyond them.

The publication singles out Ki’ikibáa’s panuchos and salbutes, particularly when topped with cochinita pibil, the citrusy slow-roasted pork that is one of Yucatán’s signature preparations.

The Times also recommends the restaurant’s relleno negro and menudo soups when they are available, while encouraging diners to share several small plates in order to experience more of Lopez’s cooking.

“Shared small plates are a cliché at a certain kind of restaurant, but here they are truly the best way to try as much of the menu as possible,” Brian Gallagher wrote in the review.

Ki’ikibáa opened in late 2022 and is located at 3244 N.E. 82nd Ave.

Mis Tacones offers a very different take

A few miles away, Mis Tacones represents an entirely different branch of Mexican American food.

Founded by Los Angeles natives Polo Bañuelos and Carlos Reynosa, the restaurant grew from a pop-up into a permanent Northeast Portland restaurant built around vegan East L.A. Chicano food.

The Times describes Mis Tacones as a colorful restaurant filled with Chicano iconography and praises the food for being remarkably delicious despite its entirely plant-based approach.

“Mis Tacones serves remarkable Mexican food that happens to be vegan,” Bill Esparaza wrote in the review.

Among the dishes highlighted are the restaurant’s nachos, topped with al pastor seitan, cashew cream and vegan beans, as well as La Chimi, its plump, lightly golden vegan chimichanga.

The recognition places Mis Tacones in the national conversation not simply as a vegan restaurant, but as a restaurant preserving and reinterpreting Mexican American food traditions.

Mis Tacones opened its permanent location at 1670 N.E. Killingsworth St. in 2022 after beginning as a vegan pop-up in Portland.