Here are our recommendations for the best Los Angeles tacos al pastor, adobada, and árabes.
This list may seem needlessly specific in its varied classifications, but that only speaks to the largess of L.A.'s pastor-packed scene. Almost as well as any Sunday evening drive, when our city streets become illuminated with generator-driven strings of lights and a steady flame shining its beam on a towering vertical beehive of slow-cooked, adobo-marinated pork.
Is al pastor L.A.'s official taco? By the sheer amount of seasoned pork stratas on spits we see, this beloved taco style definitely makes a case for this claim.
The diversity in L.A.'s al pastor scene runs parallel with a growing literacy that allows for the informed enjoyment of this slow-cooked, marinated pork as prepared by different chefs from various Mexican regions and communities.
In L.A., you'll find your al pastor tacos filled with razor-thin slices of red-stained pork butt and possibly a tiny bud of pineapple by dedicated taqueros who come from Oaxaca's Indigenous Mixe community; Tijuana entrepreneurs prone to calling it "adobada" before twisting tacos into a paper cone with a blob of bright green guacamole and a blur of superhuman speed; and tacos árabes, the al pastor ancestor that is credited to the lamb shawarma of Lebanese immigrants in Puebla, Mexico, who helped spread the joys of vertical-spit-roasted carne beloved throughout Mexico (which opted for pork and added adobo), Los Angeles, and the world beyond.
And those are far from the only influences you'll enjoy when eating al pastor in Los Angeles, especially if you're open to the types of ingenious Angelenos who stuff tacos with inky black whole octopus or mushrooms.