Though firmly ensconced on disparate sides of the globe, the food of Thailand and Mexico share more than a fair amount of similitude. Both sitting in the cradle of the Coffee Bean Belt, Thailand’s 19th parallel north circle of latitude is shared with Southern Mexico, with the two countries also enjoying a kindred vivacity on the plate.
Coriander, lime and, of course, chilli all feature conspicuously, with both cultures cherishing the shared communion of a family meal over rice, tortillas and the rest.
It shouldn’t come as much of a shock, then, to learn that Bangkok boasts some fantastic Mexican restaurants, with a spate of acclaimed recent openings only raising the stakes higher.
Well, we’ve done all the hard work, enduring dizzy heights and eating delicious bites (and a fair few duds) to bring you this; our guide to the best Mexican restaurants in Bangkok.
Ojo, Silom
Ideal for fine Mexican dining at 1000 feet…
Standing proud on the 76th floor of Bangkok’s tallest building the King Power Mahanakhon, and seemingly having even loftier ambitions than its 300 metre-high position, Ojo is one of Bangkok’s most exciting recent openings.
Check out our full review of Ojo for more on this fantastic new addition to the city’s dining scene.
Address: The Standard, Bangkok Mahanakhon, 76th Floor, 114 Narathiwas Road, Silom, Bang Rak
Website: standardhotels.com
La Monita Taqueria, Lumphini
Ideal for humble, hearty Mexican classics…
Fear not. At ground level, in downtown Bangkok just off Phloen Chit BTS station, is a much more humble, affordable affair that very much does feel like a welcoming neighbourhood Mexican restaurant, doing all the good things right; enter La Monita Taqueria.
The story of La Monita began in 2009, when husband and wife duo Billy Bautista and Kasama ‘Oh’ Laopanich surveyed the Bangkok restaurant landscape and found the Mexican food options somewhat lacking. The restaurant’s hefty, hearty Mexican comfort food, with the odd nod to chef Bautista’s Californian roots, quickly gained a legion of followers, with the 75 seat taqueria regularly packed.
12 years on, and La Monita now has three restaurants across the city; the original at Mahatun Plaza in Ploenchit, alongside La Monita Taco Truck on the ground floor of Siam Paragon, and the newest addition, La Monita Mexican Urban Cantina at EmQuartier, the latter boasting fantastic views of Bangkok from its 7th floor vantage point. Though there are differences in the food on offer between each branch, the one consistent is the quality, with customisable tacos and burritos, and a massive range of different salsas and fillings.
The headlining act at La Monita’s original branch – with items served in street-food recollective plastic trays – has got to be the super quesadilla, which sees a whopping 12-inch flour tortilla filled with cheese, beans, two types of salsa, guacamole, sour cream and your choice of protein. Ours? It has to be – and always is – the New Zealand rib eye, cooked pink and served sliced. Heaven.
Finish with the house horchata, so rich, sweet and moreish that it basically serves as a liquid dessert, and step back out into the Bangkok heat happy and satiated.
Address: มหาทุนพลาซ่า 888/25-26 Phloen Chit Rd, Lumphini, Pathum Wan, Bangkok 10330, Thailand
Website: lamonita.com
La Lupita, Silom
Ideal for real deal Mexican food in the heart of Silom…
Mexican chef Alberto Garcia has carved out a little slice of his homeland in Silom since La Lupita’s opening in 2018, with many professing the restaurant to be one of the only true ‘real deal’ Mexican joints in Bangkok.
With a happy hour running until 9pm daily, and some seriously good frozen margaritas sloshing about in the lively, sprawling space, it’s no wonder the restaurant is a hit, and that’s before you factor in everyone’s favourite dish here, the pork belly tacos, which are genuinely some of the best tacos in Bangkok. Blessed with three chunks of moo grob-grade crispy pork on each and every freshly pressed, guac-smeared tortilla, these tacos are then heaped with thinly sliced green pepper for a little verdancy. A squeeze of lime is all you need to send them on their way – magic.
The Baja fish tacos are almost as good, with pieces of deeply golden, deeply-fried fish that wouldn’t look out of place in your local London chippy dressed simply with fresh pico de gallo and shredded cabbage. It really is all you need.
Keep an eye out, too, for La Lupita’s monthly ‘Four Hands Dinner’ collaborations, which sees chefs across the city dropping in to Si Lom Road for one night only. Next week (July 18th), acclaimed chef Pepe Dasi will be working the comal, teaming up chef Garcia for an evening of Spanish/Mexican fusion. Booking is highly recommended for this one; we can’t wait!
Now, did we mention those frozen margaritas? We’ve had a few and fear we’re getting forgetful…
Address: 981 Si Lom Rd, Silom, Bang Rak, Bangkok 10500, Thailand
Instagram: @lalupitabkk
Santiaga, Lumphini
Ideal for an enlightening, effervescent Mexican omakase experience…
From the same team behind La Monita (as well as popular Texan eatery Billy’s Smokehouse, which the restaurant sits above) comes Santiaga, a whole different proposition to the easy, breezy vibes of their Bangkok taquerias, and one of the city’s most exciting openings of recent years.
Open since April 2022, Santiaga positions itself as ‘Mexican omakase’, with a largely tasting menu – a ‘’Mexican 101’’, in their words – format served to reverent diners seated around a counter, the open kitchen serving as the chefs’ lectern.
Though this may all sound a little fussy and formal for a cuisine so well suited to convivial vibes, chef Billy’s effervescence pulls off that fine balancing act between the educational and the exuberant with aplomb.
Over an 11-or-so course tasting menu (clocking in just north of 2’500 baht) that sprawls over several hours and culminates in a trio of delectable tacos, guests are introduced to the refined, complex side of Mexican cuisine, with the highlight a 40-ingredient mole – grandma’s recipe – that dances on the palate with such elegant steps that the perfectly roast chicken it’s served alongside barely gets a moment under the mirror ball.
As with any great Mexican restaurant – whether streetside taqueria or fine dining culinary mecca – the quality of the food lives and dies by the standard of their tortillas, and Santiaga takes theirs very seriously indeed. Made from scratch on site, freshly pressed and cooked on Bangkok’s only clay comal, they are superb.
With an extensive range of premium tequila and mezcal, this is certainly a special occasion kind of place, but one where you leave feeling both nourished and enlightened.
Address: 888, Above Billy’s Smokehouse, 23-24 Phloen Chit Rd, Lumphini, Pathum Wan, Bangkok 10330, Thailand
Facebook: Santiaga Mexican Cuisine
Ms. Maria & Mr. Singh, Sukhumvit
Ideal for a loving marriage of Mexican and Indian culinary cultures…
Even those not au fait with Bangkok’s gastronomic landscape may well be familiar with chef and provocateur Gaggan Anand, whether it’s through his appearance on the second season of Netflix’s Chef’s Table, the fact that he was the first Indian chef to win two Michelin stars (in his now-closed Bangkok restaurant Gaggan), or because of his engaging, entertaining social media presence.
Well, at Ms. Maria and Mr. Singh’s, chef Anand tells the culinary story of a ‘’love affair between a Mexican hometown girl and an Indian city boy’’ via a perfectly poised marriage of Mexican-Indian cuisine. Expect the chef’s famous crab curry, but this time paired with goan poee bread for pulling through the complex sauce. Or, keema paneer quesadillas, rich and heady with the flavour of mutton and roasted spices, and served before pork vindaloo tacos with pineapple salsa, a beautifully balanced affair.
All of these dishes are available on the current tasting menu (a snip at 4000 baht for two) being served in a new location on the second floor of Gaggan Anand’s eponymous restaurant on Soi Sukhumvit 31. The vibe here is relaxed and playful, the vibrant decor channelling both Oaxaca and Jodhpur to vivid effect.
Riffing on that theme, as you enter the restaurant a flashing neon sign declares that ‘’love should never be mild’’. The food here more than lives up to that proclamation, and we couldn’t be happier that chef Anand continues to express himself in such a frisky, frivolous way.
Address: 68/2 Soi Sukhumvit 31, Khlong Tan Nuea, Watthana, Bangkok 10110, Thailand
Website: mariaandsinghbkk.com
Cholos, Sukhumvit
Ideal for food truck taco feasting…
Speaking of Anand, the former Gaggan chef Eduard González, a Mexican-native, now mans the plancha at the Sukhumvit taco truck Cholos. We’re pleased to report it’s bloody great.
Channelling LA’s food truck culture, the menu here is as compact as the kitchen from which it’s served, with a tight list of heavy-hitting, heavy-sitting streetfood classics wooing the downtown crowd every Wednesday to Sunday lunchtime and evening.
The Baja fish tacos, simply adorned with shredded purple cabbage and pico de gallo, taste as good as they do on the opposing side of the North Pacific, whilst the baby corn elote, grilled then dressed with crema fresca, eats beautifully.
With the vibe as ‘authentic’ as you’ll get so far from home, with happy diners spilled out across the truck’s adjoining parking lot, sleeves rolled up and shirts splattered with salsa, this is certainly one of the best places to eat Mexican food in Bangkok. The crispy burrito cheese wrap washed down with a frozen margarita is a must.
Address: Bangkapi Mansion, 89 Sukhumvit 12 Alley, Khwaeng Khlong Toei, Khlongtoey, Bangkok 10110, Thailand
Website: Cholos Bkk
Charley Brown’s Mexican, Sukhumvit
Ideal for a Tex Mex Bangkok institution…
It could be said that Charley Brown’s set the standard for quality Tex Mex in the city, with the restaurant serving the good stuff since 1992.
Quite possibly Thailand’s oldest Mexican restaurant and now in its third incarnation on Sukhumvit Soi 19, the premise is still very much the same as when they started some three decades ago; the warmest of welcomes, super-sized plates of the type of fortifying comfort food found in the US’ southern central states, and punchy margaritas (mine’s a passion fruit) to send you on your way unsteadily.
Our favourite thing to order here, however, is something we’ve not encountered on other Mexican menus. The Berenjena Maria, which calls to mind a parmigiana melanzane with added oomph – sees slices of aubergine layered with goat’s cheese and a red chilli sauce, before being topped with breadcrumbs and baked until it’s a cakey, oozy unit. One for dusting off the hangover, this.
Address: 19, 9-10 Soi Sukhumvit 19, Khlong Toei Nuea, Khet Watthana, Bangkok 10110, Thailand
Website: charleybrownsmexicana.com
Sunrise Tacos, Silom
Ideal for no nonsense chips, salsa and margarita…
Sunrise Tacos’ original branch will always have a regrettable association with sleaze, owing to its position at the entry point to Patpong, one of Bangkok’s red light districts, but the impossible-to-miss restaurant certainly fills a certain hole if you alight in Silom after sinking a few Singha in the sun.
Keep things simple here with Sunrise’s bottomless chips and salsa (available in mild, medium or hot). Follow that with the restaurant’s flautas, here filled with chicken and cheese, fried, then draped in the Mexican tricolour (represented by enchilada chilli sauce, sour cream, and blended guacamole) and you can’t go far wrong.
Though it’s certainly not scaling the dizzy heights of Ojo or the measured elegance of Santiaga, Sunrise has a chaotic charm, and with a litre pitcher of eminently drinkable margarita clocking in at under 545 baht here, the appeal is clear.
Website: sunrisetacos.com
Address: See various locations here
And if you’re keen on some tacos closer to home, do check out these great Mexican restaurants in Brighton. Make our mezcal a double shot!