The best birria and carnitas tacos near Philly are in Delaware. Here's where ... and why. (2024)

It took only one bite to make me believe. Returning made me faithful.

At Tortilleria Dos Milpas in the tight Mexican enclave of Elsmere outside Wilmington, a father and son each named Gabino Trujillo make tortillas so fresh they likely spent their morning as kernels of corn. Thick and hearty mole ranchero whose sauce takes a day to make, and whose flavors exist only in one tiny village of southern Mexico. Hearty goat birria stew on special, spiced with elemental earth and fire.

But especially, there is carnitas. The Trujillos make flavorful and tender and impossibly savory pork carnitas braised for hours from a recipe buried deep in the heart of Michoacan — the southern state where Mexicans will travel for hours to find the most famous pork carnitas, the same way Americans dream of Texas brisket.

If you’re anywhere near Philly, the place you should be getting your carnitas, or the trendy dish of birria, is probably Delaware.

Outside of Delaware, you don’t hear much about Delaware tacos. But over the past two decades, New Castle County quietly became the most populous home to Mexican food and culture within a hundred miles — more so than Philly, Pennsylvania’s Chester County or any county in South Jersey.

Across the Mid-Atlantic region, only a few counties in the tight orbit of New York City can claim more people with Mexican ancestry than New Castle, as of the most recent census.

The result, in part, has been some of the finest carnitas and birria in the region — with multiple Delaware restaurants serving better renditions than anything I’ve been able to find at even the most lauded spots in Philadelphia.

More: How Mexican pizza became a distinctly Philadelphia food

Philly’s Mexican chefs are rightfully famous for Puebla specialties such as spit-roasted al pastor, and South Jersey’s for Oaxacan-style mole. But many of Delaware’s Mexican restaurateurs hail from elsewhere: states in Mexico’s Southwest such as Guanajuato, Michoacan and Jalisco. Places best known for slow-and-low cooking, long-braised meats that cook for hours until their tenderness either gives you religion or makes you lose it.

Carnitas. Birria. Barbacoa. Cabeza. Oh, lord.

Many New Castle County chefs and restaurant owners, including Trujillo Sr. at Dos Milpas, lived a similar story. They first came to the area around Kennett Square in Chester County for plentiful mushroom industry jobs. But one by one they were drawn to nearby Delaware for better opportunities, until the cultural axis slowly shifted: New Castle County grew to host the region’s largest Mexican community.

In part, said Philadelphia Mexican consul Carlos Obrador, Delaware’s lack of sales tax makes it attractive.

But Delaware also is a welcoming political environment, Obrador said, and Wilmington and nearby cities have been eager to champion the economic growth brought by Mexican-American entrepreneurs, The majority of immigrants are here legally, he said, but some undocumented Mexican immigrants were inspired to move to New Castle County — and to start successful, taxpaying businesses — because they were able to obtain a legal driver’s license impossible in Pennsylvania.

More recently, Delaware has seen its largest direct immigration from Puebla, the Caribbean-influenced Gulf state of Veracruz, and the area surrounding Mexico City.

The reasons for immigration are complicated and various; they always are. But in terms of food, the results of this new influx of Mexican immigrants have been blessedly straightforward.

If you would like to eat the best quesabirria or carnitas tacos near Philly, they probably aren’t in Philly. Increasingly, they're in New Castle County. We ate at dozens of taquerias to find our favorites, and the top five here are worth a drive from anywhere in the region.

Here’s where to find our favorite tacos in Delaware, from tiny markets to butcher shops and tortilla makers.

Carniceria Camargo

418 N. James St., Newport, 302-502-3000.

Weekend mornings are the real party at many northern Delaware taco shops — the days when laborious items like carnitas and lamb birria might find their way onto the menu.

But you have to get up early to procure the excellent carnitas at Newport’s Carniceria Camargo, a bustling meat market and taqueria with another location in Kennett Square. Those carnitas are stirred up each morning in a massive pot called an olla, crisped to order on the flat-top until the meat reaches crackling sear, and nearly always sold out by early afternoon.

Weekends also are the only time you’ll get a batch of butcher Pedro Camargo’s slow-cooked lamb quesabirria — which likewise sells out early each day.

Unlike the overloaded stringy-beef salt bombs served far too often in these parts, the lamb quesabirria at Carniceria Camargo is marked by savor and balance: lightly crisped tortillas filled with slow-braised lamb whose chile-annato flavor is more aromatic than fiery, possessed of tenderness otherwise rare for birria in the region.

Quesabirria fans of my acquaintance in Philadelphia were skeptical that Delaware could have an edge over their locally lauded spots, and so I brought them birria tacos from Camargo as a rejoinder. Now, they mostly just ask when I’ll bring more Delaware tacos.

And yet, those aren’t even the most famous meats at Camargo. That honor goes to the chorizo, a low-fat and complexly spiced recipe passed down through three generations of Pedro Camargo’s family. The butcher shop’s chorizo is a marvel of intense flavor without the grease, one of very few chorizos that can stand alone in a taco.

More: 3 generations, 2 countries and the family chorizo recipe that made it to Delaware

Taqueria Los Compadres

2675 Kirkwood Highway, Milltown, 302-368-8289, facebook.com/TaqueriaLosCompadresDelaware.

For the most consistently excellent carnitas we’ve tried in the region, stop in at Taqueria Los Compadres in Newark, tucked into the back end of Meadowood Shopping Center behind Argilla Brewing.

The tacos al compadre, their take on quesabirria, has become the restaurant’s most popular item: an earthy-spiced and stewed Michoacan-style barbacoa accented with cheese, whose house-made tortillas are lightly crisped on the grill with orange-red consome. The lightly charred pork adobada and al pastor are even better than the barbacoa.

But the carnitas is the star.

The fat on Los Compadres’ long-braised pork shoulder is beautifully rendered to the point of aching depth without losing a droplet of moisture. Served on each taco in meaty chunks, that shoulder boasts a succulence and deep savor that resembles, more than anything, a holiday pork roast.

Mixed with a bit of chicharron and crisped lightly on the flat-top, the carnitas arrives as a symphony of texture wrapped in slender corn. The recipe traveled from Michoacan with Jose and Maria Lemus, when Jose first arrived to work the mushroom farms of Chester County decades ago. And it arrived in Newark in 2006, when the pair opened their taqueria.

Lucky you: A carnitas taco at Los Compadres is the closest thing to ecstasy you could expect to find for $4 on any random Tuesday.

Tortilleria Dos Milpas

1721 W. Gilpin Drive, Wilmington, 302-397-8262, taqueriadosmilpas.com.

Dos Milpas means “Two Cornfields.” And corn is what sets the year-old Dos Milpas apart from most every taqueria in this country.

Even among the minority of taquerias that make their own fresh tortillas, most press theirs using a brand of industrial corn flour called Maseca.

Dos Milpas starts with corn.Specifically, co-owner Gabino Trujillo Jr., starts with kernels of blue or organic white corn, which then are soaked in alkaline solution and de-husked, before being pressed into a flour called nixtamal.

More great tortillas: Undocumented immigrants in Pennsylvania make tortillas with indigenous corn

The resulting tortillas arrive replete with the full character and aroma of grain, the flavor from the farm that grew it. It’s a little like the difference between fresh Italian rolls and Wonder bread.

Indeed, Trujillo Jr., first conceived the family business solely as a tortilleria. But slowly, his father’s Michoacano recipes have filled the restaurant. This means goat birria specials and meaty pork ribs. It also means a complex mole ranchero whose flavors are so specific to the tiny town of Nocupetero that a customer who grew up in the same town once demanded to know who had cooked it, only to discover that he and Gabino Sr., grew up together.

The carnitas recipe comes courtesy of a family friend in Michoacan — a hearty mix of long-braised pork shoulder and skin and rib and stomach that braises for hours. Results can vary depending on how long the carnitas sits in the hot plate, ranging from merely excellent to heartbreakingly delicious. At its freshest, Dos Milpas’ carnitas is among the best in the region.

Taqueria El Pique

805 Old Dupont Road, near Elsmere, 302-655-0659, el-pique-mexican-restaurant.business.site; 319 S Dupont Highway, New Castle,302-276-0552, el-pique.business.site.

The original El Pique taqueria, sandwiched between a liquor store and a notorious speed trap just south of Elsmere, looks like a bomb bunker held over from the war. There, you will never be alone: the line begins before the taqueria opens, and it ends after it closes at 6 pm.

Though the tortillas here are standard issue, El Pique does indeed make admirable versions of nearly all of the dozen or so meats it serves — and so you can order with impunity among asada and carnitas and tinga.

But go to the newer and less busy New Castle location instead: That is where, most recently, one finds the most reliable versions of carnitas and the shop’s longtime specialty of fire-engine red lamb barbacoa.

The quesabirria tacos at El Pique are a singular version: gooey and rich in their cheesiness, without the stewy overload of many lesser contenders. The tortillas arrive instead grill-charred and red with consome, with the approximate character of earthy-spiced and meaty mini-quesadillas. They’re lovely, and if I don't eat them every day it's because I listen to my doctor.

La Estrella Taqueria Carniceria

793 Pulaski Highway, Bear, 302-322-7070.

Another butcher shop, another hall of lovely meat.

Just like Camargo in Newport, Bear’s La Estrella Taqueria Carniceria sells its meat both by the pound and by the taco. Their own tortillas are hand-pressed on site — though they’ll happily also send you out with a pound of packaged nixtamal tortillas from Dos Milpas.

The carnitas at La Estrella is full-flavored and various of texture, a similar school to what you'd find at Los Compadres. If it's not as mind-bendingly delicious as the pork made in Newark, they remain among the best we’ve had anywhere near.

But also of note are sterling versions of a couple lesser-seen meats. La Estrella’s cachete, or beef cheek, is all slow-cooked tenderness and umami, best with a wee squirt of lime. The cecina, a cured and smoked cut of beef well-known in the state of Guanajuato, blessedly avoids the saltiness endemic to some versions. It tastes, and chews, a little as if pastrami were also jerky.

Other favorites:

La Morena

757 Pulaski Highway, Bear, 302-322-5274, orderlamorenallc.com.

Just a few minutes up the road from La Estrella, La Morena is a little market and butcher counter whose back room contains rare wonders on the weekend.

Obispo is a specialty I’ve seen almost nowhere else in America: a coarse, fatty and mild pork sausage from the town of Toluca near Mexico City that tastes a little like Mexican rillettes.The cueritos (pork skin) tacos, meanwhile, are softer than crispy and possessed of excellent depth and a light gaminess.The weekend carnitas, meanwhile, are an interesting case, soft and moist and steamy and mild: If you blindfolded me, I‘d swear it was kalua pork from Hawaii.

El Cantarito

181 S Dupont Highway, New Castle, 302-322-3095, orderelcantaritomexicanrestaurant.com.

El Cantarito looks like a little house got dropped into a car lot on the side of a highway. Its menu contains equal surprises: cecina tortas, cabeza sandwiches on seeded cemita bread, items you don't often see.

Some of the most flavorful meats come out on the weekend. El Cantarito’s Saturday and Sunday specials menu includes both lamb and beef barbacoas, as well as a slow-braised carnitas, all served on tortillas that might be pressed from masa as you watch. The carnitas is filled with salty oomph, and the barbacoas are interestingly various. While the beef is as spicy as any Jalisco birria, the lamb leans gentle and meaty, an ode to a sheepy life lived on grass.

El Nevado Mexican Store

13 N Broad St., Middletown, 302-376-6027.

In Middletown, longstanding Latin American market El Nevado added a butcher shop and taqueria about eight years ago. There, Hidalgo-born owner Jose Ortiz Flores serves meat that might have been raised a few hours' drive away: grill-kissed and filled with farm flavor.

The carnitas don’t compare with the richer flavors at the Michoacano spots, but El Nevado serves Hidalgo-style barbacoa famous even in Mexican for its strong undertow of umami and light sweetness, a flavor that seems determined to prove that barbacoa and barbecue are kissing cousins. Meanwhile, the carne asada here is among the better grilled taco meats we’ve tried in the region.

Taqueria Rojas

3616 Kirkwood Highway, Prices Corner, 302-999-9966.

Taqueria Rojas, tucked demurely into a mini-mall ‘twixt a Mexican ice cream shop and a hot tub store, came recommended by other Mexican chefs in the area. While we lusted more for the Guanajuato-style huaraches and hearty tortas, the tortillas on the tacos here are fresh and tasty, the carne asada and campechano well-grilled. The little taqueria also boasts birria and goat consome on Sundays, and specials that can range from meaty guisado stews to occasional carnitas we've yet to try.

Another intriguing item we’ve yet to taste is a Sunday special of stomach-stuffed montalaya, Mexico’s resoundingly spicy answer to a Scottish haggis or Southern dandoodle sausage.

Rivera Taco Express

243 Christiana Road, New Castle, 302-276-2024; 1969 Pulaski Hwy., Bear, 302-367-2641; casamariachidelaware.com.

The two Rivera Taco Express trucks have a cult following in Delaware to rival that of El Pique, one of a few places that function as secret handshakes among local taco lovers. Though the tortillas were standard-issue on our visit and could have used more time on the grill, Rivera’s flavorful cabeza (cow head) tacos were good enough to ensure a place on this list. It's also hard not to appreciate the grill-roasted onion bulb and jalapeno that graciously adorn each order.

Matthew Korfhage is business and development reporter in the Delaware region covering all the things that touch land and money: openings and closings, construction, and the many corporations who call the First State home. A longtime food writer, he also tends to turn up with stories about tacos, oysters and beer. Send tips and insults to mkorfhage@gannett.com.