A Celebrity Chef But Terrible Food

A good chef is a terrible thing to waste.

Photo by Tai’s Captures on Unsplash

Nothing stood out about the restaurant. At least from the outside looking in. Not that I expected it to. A glitzy restaurant oozing gold with crystal chandeliers twisting in the air conditioning would have been cause for concern. When it comes to a taco restaurant, simpler is almost always unequivocally better.

This particular spot came highly recommended. By that, I mean every guidebook and national write-up covering the Tucson food scene pointed to it as being the go-to spot for the best tacos in town. Strangely, in the six months of calling Tucson home, no locals had suggested as much. Everyone had their own hand-picked and tastebud-selected spot. Most were on the outskirts of town or tucked away in unassuming stretches of desert, customers spilling out of the door like chunks of beef falling out of an overly stuffed tortilla.

In the time since I started calling the Old Pueblo home, I had sampled more than my share of tacos. I had a lot of catching up to do, so I wasted little time checking off restaurants mentioned on the “must-visit” lists. The particular location I stood in front of, holding its own on Fourth Avenue, had evaded me, for no particular reason other than I wanted to try the rest before I tried, as the countless articles proclaimed, “the best.”