First Look: Radio Taco Rockets a Birria-Fuelled Menu Onto a Chippendale Corner

It’s Thursday night, and the line at Chippendale’s new Radio Taco is snaking out the door and onto Abercrombie Street. It’s the first week of service and despite the reasonable wait time for such a busy night, the team is handing out cups of hibiscus iced tea and horchata on the house, apologising about the delay. At 7.20pm, they’re sold out.

“We got an amazing response,” co-owner Pablo Galindo tells Broadsheet. “We run out of birria every day.”

The mighty 12-seat taqueria – laser-focused on the beauty of birria – arrives from a trio of experienced hospo figures: Galindo, hailing from Mexico City and one of the founders of Milpa Collective (Carbon, Taqiza, Bar Lucia); Héctor Vallés, originally from Chihuahua, now the owner of the catering business and market stall Ola Lola; and chef Aldo Lara (ex-Rockpool, The Dolphin, The International), whose hometown, San Miguel de Allende, Galindo refers to as the “culinary mecca” of Mexico right now.

Together, they’ve moved into the Chippo corner previously occupied by the beloved Joy Fried Chicken. There’s now a flash new lightbox by Domus Vim , funky branding by Paul Tooth and a handpainted mirrored sign inside by Good Hands. There’s also a meticulously curated playlist – but it was a conscious decision to not do too much at Radio Taco.

“Something that I have always noticed is that when you go to a Mexican restaurant, the menus are always kind of the same,” says Galindo. “Including my restaurants, they have the same – guacamole, ceviche, tacos. It’s like a mix of all the regional cuisines around Mexico, which is not happening in Mexico.”

No, in Mexico – especially the taquerias and street food joints – the eateries have tunnel vision. “They do one recipe, and they do it very well because that’s the only thing they do. And that’s, I think, when you get to perfection.”

That one thing here is birria – and the ultra-rich broth. It’s slow-cooked in 120-litre pots with chillies imported from Mexico, no shortcuts. The 48-hour marinated beef is the recommended order, but the mushroom birria is so great it even shocked the team. There’s chicken too, and a traditional goat birria is in the works.

The birria’s multi-day cook time is in service of a tight menu of Jalisco classics. The must-order is the queso tacos: crispy, cheesy, with that ultra-rich birria consommé for dunking.

But there are also $18 birria burritos, $18 birria nachos and a $13 bowl of ramen with the noodles swimming in birria consommé.

“We wanted to create a place that could be affordable and that people could come multiple times a week, if they wanted to,” Galindo says.

Radio Taco arrives in Sydney’s inner city soon after Oxford Street copped Papi’s Birria and El Taco Grill parked up with volcanoes in Marrickville – each venue’s immediate queues prove Sydney’s here for it.

Expect weekly specials in Chippendale once the team’s settled in, too. Keep an eye on socials if you, like us, want that birria beef loaded onto a torta or into a tamale.

Radio Taco
67 Abercrombie Street, Chippendale

Hours:
Mon to Sat 11am–3pm, 5pm–9pm

@radiotacoau