Barbacoa Taco Kit

This family style package is what many folks travel to South Philly Barbacoa for each weekend. They cut the proportion of lamb barbacoa that is desired, and it arrives at the table piping hot with bowls of consomé, a basket of warm tortillas, and all the salsas and accouterments. Families enjoy plucking a tortilla out of the basket and filling with the meat, and garnishing with nopales, chiles, or salsa. For dessert, many people love the sweet tamales with pineapple and raisin.

The barbacoa is only served on the weekends, because it is a labor-intensive process which consumes the whole week. From working in the slaughterhouse, butchering the whole lambs, making pancitas, nixtamalizing hundreds of kilos of corn for masa, to making all the salsas from scratch, to de-thorning, blanching and sautéing the nopales, the prep team gears up every week for a busy weekend with hundreds of customers.

Chef Cristina, an undocumented immigrant, provides employment to several members of the community, and has always used her platform to advocate for the respect and dignity of undocumented restaurant workers. She hopes more chefs can join her in acknowledging the great contribution of undocumented immigrants to the country’s great restaurants and help federal lawmakers make the ethical choice to decriminalize their work and create a pathway to citizenship for all.

Philadelphians have been lining up down the block for a taste of South Philly Barbacoa’s legendary lamb barbacoa tacos since 2012, but chef/owner Cristina Martinez comes from a long line of barbacoieros, and has been making traditional barbacoa the old-fashioned way since she was a little girl growing up in Capulhuac, Mexico. After leaving an abusive marriage she immigrated to Philly, where she remarried and started selling her slow-roasted barbacoa out of her apartment. A food cart soon followed, then a brick-and-mortar restaurant, then appearances on Netflix’s “Chef’s Table” and “Ugly Delicious” and national acclaim.

Butter not included
CA and AZ orders will not include limes