Taco Sticker Shock

New York City. This is a place where every day you wake up you could experience everything from a plane crashing into our trade center to a person who’s celebrating a new business that’s selling a $60 loaf of bread or a $135 pie. I assume you, too, haven’t been able to avoid the chatter about the prices at the new Flatiron location of Mexico City import El Califa de León, which in 2024 became the first taqueria to be awarded a Michelin star. The Google rating is 3.3/5 stars (averaged from 126 reviews), suffering from customers complaining about the cost. On the Food NYC sub-Reddit, they’re asking of the costilla ($18.99), “has there ever been a more expensive taco in the city?” (Is it one taco? Is it two? Who can really say? In fairness, one order is a 4-ounce slab of meat over two tortillas.) It may be New York’s most expensive, as Robert Sietsema writes, though that depends on whether you perceive it as one or two tacos. Cuerno’s taco taquero, which includes three beef tacos, is $42; Empellón’s beef tenderloin tacos run $38 for two, on par with El Califa. But, whatever, that’s not really the point. I don’t want to sit here griping about the price, but I do want to talk to El Califa’s ownership about the economics of the taqueria. So, yesterday, I got on the phone with José Andrés Hernández Elizalde, a third-generation co-owner of the company, and Rodrigo Díaz, who runs the New York location and is the CMO. (Andrés Hernández’s grandfather Juan Hernández González was a butcher who opened the original taqueria.)