Two Northeast Portland restaurants just landed on one of the biggest stages in American food writing. Ki'ikibáa, the Yucatecan spot on NE 82nd Avenue, and Mis Tacones, the vegan Chicano taqueria on NE Killingsworth Street, were both named among the 41 best Mexican restaurants in the country.
The New York Times published its national roundup, titled 41 of the Greatest Mexican Restaurants Across the United States, on August 13, recognizing both Portland establishments among the list's 41 restaurants, according to KOIN. The list, as CultureMap reports, spotlights regional Mexican culinary traditions and plant-based Chicano dining from coast to coast. Portland wasn't alone in the spotlight either — Hoodline reported on another restaurant from the same list earlier this week.
A Family-Owned Yucatecan Kitchen at 3244 NE 82nd Ave.
Ki'ikibáa, located at 3244 NE 82nd Avenue, is a family-owned restaurant led by chef Manny Lopez, per the seed story's reporting. The Times recommended sharing dishes to sample the restaurant's full range, which includes panuchos, salbutes, cochinita pibil, relleno negro, and menudo soups. The Times specifically highlighted the cochinita pibil as citrusy, slow-roasted pork, while noting that the relleno negro and menudo soups aren't always on offer.
This isn't Ki'ikibáa's first brush with Times recognition — the publication had previously included the restaurant on its list of the top 25 eateries in Portland. The restaurant's name itself translates to “delicious food” in the Mayan language, according to Time Out, a fitting label for a menu built around banana-leaf tamales and other Yucatan Peninsula staples. One standout dish, the relleno negro, is a turkey soup simmered in a dark broth made from charred chile paste that Lopez reportedly spends up to a week preparing, according to The Infatuation, and it features a pork meatball wrapped around a hard-boiled egg.
From Cully Cult Favorite to National Recognition
Chef Lopez isn't new to earning devoted fans in this city. Before opening Ki'ikibáa in late 2022 alongside his wife, Suny Parra Castillo, Lopez built a local cult following for his Yucatecan cooking at Angel Food & Fun in Cully, according to Willamette Week. He then stepped away from restaurant kitchens for five years starting in 2017 before returning with Ki'ikibáa, which now also has burritos with their own fanbase, per KOIN's reporting. The Oregonian named Ki'ikibáa its Portland Restaurant of the Year in December 2023, praising Lopez for introducing high-level Yucatecan cuisine to the city just one year after the restaurant opened.
Vegan Chicano Street Food on Killingsworth
Across town, Mis Tacones — a brick-and-mortar restaurant at 1670 NE Killingsworth St. — took a very different path to national recognition. Co-founders Polo Bañuelos and Carlos Reynosa aimed to fuse their Los Angeles roots with their vegan lifestyle in the Pacific Northwest, according to the New York Times' own description of the restaurant, as relayed by KOIN. The Times described the restaurant's dishes as remarkably delicious, calling out nachos topped with al pastor seitan, cashew cream, and vegan beans, along with a chimichanga the menu calls La Chimi.
Mis Tacones didn't start as a traditional restaurant at all. It launched in 2016 as an informal pop-up and art project at outdoor markets and queer drag events, according to Portland State University, before Bañuelos and Reynosa opened the permanent Killingsworth Street location in February 2022. The restaurant recreates traditional East Los Angeles Chicano street food entirely with plant-based ingredients, including house-made seitan seasoned to emulate al pastor, asada, and carnitas, as detailed by Wikipedia's entry on the restaurant. The space pairs Chicano pop culture aesthetics — Chicano iconography rendered in a rainbow of pastels, per KOIN's description — with Pacific Northwest plant-based dining sensibilities.
A Mutual Aid Mission Behind the Menu
Beyond the food, Mis Tacones has built a reputation for community care. The restaurant maintains a mutual aid initiative offering free meals to trans people of color upon request, a practice inspired by the Oakland vegan restaurant Gay4U, according to Portland Monthly. Bañuelos and Reynosa started the practice to support marginalized LGBTQ+ individuals in the neighborhood surrounding their restaurant.
Two Corridors, One National Spotlight
Together, the inclusion of Ki'ikibáa and Mis Tacones on the Times list spotlights NE 82nd Avenue and Killingsworth Street as growing centers for regional and diverse culinary concepts, a pattern Portland Monthly has tracked as both corridors see rising concentrations of immigrant- and queer-owned food businesses. Local dining coverage from outlets like Willamette Week and Eater Portland has increasingly reflected a broader shift in the city's Mexican food scene — one moving beyond typical taquerias into specialized regional styles, from Yucatecan cooking to plant-based Chicano street food. For two restaurants with such different origin stories, from a chef's hard-won comeback to a queer pop-up's evolution into a mutual-aid mainstay, the shared national recognition marks a significant moment for how the rest of the country now sees Portland's Mexican food scene.
