A mysterious neon light marks the way to this late-night, orange-hued taqueria from a team who have built a solid fan base with their taco truck. Here’s your first look.
Quincy Malesovas
Taqueria Sin Nombre (Spanish for “taqueria without a name”) opened in Chinatown this month, on the same laneway as long-standing Supper Inn, Heyday Hong Kong Cafe and One or Two cocktail bar. It’s a nondescript building, save for the small neon outline of a dingo – the only clue to the restaurant’s origin.
Dingo Ate My Taco, which launched as a Mexican food truck in 2020, is behind the spot. A nameless restaurant signals a change of pace for the brand, which has become just as notorious for its tongue-in-cheek name as for its brisket and birria.
“We’re super excited about this,” says Katherine Simkins, who owns both businesses with her husband, Paul Walcutt.
At Taqueria Sin Nombre, diners can expect a rotating menu, starting with snacks like molten queso with tortilla chips, and smoked chicken skin that’s deep-fried to become crispy sheets of chicharron.
“We take the skin off the chickens after we smoke them [for tacos], then we rehydrate the skin, re-smoke it and fry it,” Simkins says.
Tacos come on house-made tortillas with fillings including Texas-style brisket, carnitas (slow-cooked shredded pork) and “kanga asada” – a riff on carne asada made with kangaroo. There’s also a whole prawn taco, head and all, and quesabirria – cheesy, meaty tacos served with consomme for dipping – which are a crowd favourite at Dingo’s St Kilda shop and roving food truck.
The on-site trompo, a vertical spit, allows for al pastor, a style of grilling marinated pork introduced to Mexico by Lebanese migrants.
Choripapas (potato and chorizo) tacos, typically reserved for breakfast, will also be served well into the evening.
Once the liquor licence comes through, the team plans to introduce cocktails, Mexican beer and spirits. They’re even producing their own mezcal, expected to be ready early next year.
Simkins and Walcutt weren’t planning on opening a city site – they have another new restaurant in Abbotsford in the works –but put that on hold when the narrow space on Celestial Avenue became available.
“We were looking at [it] off and on for a long time,” Simkins says. “It’s very much just something we wanted to do, kind of like the [taco] truck initially.”
It was formerly a ghost kitchen and, before that, a historic bean sprout supplier, Yin Kee Louey & Co. Raw brick walls and a pitched ceiling remain, contrasted with an orange-tiled bar, matching stools and tables built from old Coca-Cola crates. Simkins hauled 400 orange plastic plates back from Mexico City to mirror what’s used in taquerias there.
The restaurant is kitted out with custom wooden speakers from Tasmanian company Pitt and Giblin, with rotating DJs planned for weekends.
Open dinner Fri-Sun
12-14 Celestial Avenue, Melbourne, instagram.com/taqueriasinnombre.melbourne
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