Taqueria Sin Nombre

The al pastor is turned by hand rather than on a motor, because the team decided a motorised trompo dries the pork out.

Why go

Katherine Simkins, Paul Walcutt and Isaac Castellano ran the Dingo Ate My Taco trucks before this, and the shop is where the fussy decisions went (Broadsheet). Masa is mixed and milled fresh every day, rested, then run through a small tortilla machine they imported from Mexico, and they cart that machine between the shop and the trucks because it is worth the trouble. The pork shoulder is hand-sliced, marinated in pineapple juice and spices and stacked tight so the lean cut stays moist, then re-grilled slice by slice on the plancha because the Department of Health requires it. The kangaroo asada is the local crossing: orange, garlic and Mexican oregano, grilled rare over a hibachi made for the room by Samuel Fraraccio. Rare matters with kangaroo, which has almost no fat to protect it and turns to leather in a minute. The vegan menu is built without fake meat, and the hibiscus flowers left over from the agua fresca get cooked down until they caramelise.

Order this / avoid

• Order: al pastor first, with the pickled pineapple, white onion and coriander it comes with. Kangaroo asada, rare. Birria, which is what the trucks were known for. The rib eye shaved thin with salsa macha. Then work the salsa bar, where the green one runs on tomatillos the team peels and freezes by the tonne.
• Avoid: hunting for a sign, since there is almost none. Bringing a group, since the room is a counter. Planning around a phone call, since it opened without a phone.

What locals & experts say

• Sofia Levin, food writer and MasterChef Australia judge (April 2026): "My new answer to this question is Taqueria Sin Nombre in the CBD. It's moody and dimly lit, without any windows, serves tacos as good as any I've eaten in Mexico City, and epitomises Melbourne cool." ref
• Nick Connellan, Broadsheet, in the masthead's standing CBD restaurants guide (updated December 2025): find it "and you'll be rewarded with top-tier birria and al pastor tacos, plus clever original creations for vegans". ref
• Katherine Simkins, co-founder, on why you cannot find it: "We wanted it to be found slowly, like the taquerias we love in Mexico City, the ones you only learn about from someone who really wants you to go." ref
• Isaac Castellano, head chef, on the difference between the trucks and the shop: "Dingo is chaos in the best way. We love it. But we wanted a place where you sit down, someone looks after you and the details matter." ref
• Broadsheet's Hot List (April 2026): "This place was added to the Hot List recently and has the whole city talking." That is a masthead listing rather than a critic's verdict, and no bylined review of the food exists yet. ref

Good to know

• Where: 12-14 Celestial Avenue, off a Chinatown laneway in the CBD, between Supper Inn and One or Two. The master spreadsheet filed this row under Collingwood, which is wrong; Broadsheet's address line and Sofia Levin both put it in the CBD.
• Timing: it opened in November 2025 on Friday and Saturday nights only, 5pm to 10pm, while the liquor licence was pending. The licence has since landed and the plan was five nights and eventually lunch, so check before you go.
• Booking: walk-in, at a counter. It launched with no phone.
• Drink: mezcal, a short cocktail list, and three beers the founders argued over before settling on Sol, Negro Modelo and Melbourne Bitter.
• Diet: a separate vegan menu, written without fake meats.
• Hygiene: Victoria publishes no consumer-facing food-hygiene rating, so there is no Australian equivalent of an FSA score to record.

Jeff's take (his words)

Nothing. Melbourne has no _src saved-places export in this repo, so no Jeff note stands behind this row. The master CSV's "Cult Collingwood hole-in-the-wall" line was written by an enrichment pass, names the wrong suburb, and is not repeated above.

Verdict (Chef Jeff ladder)

must-visit — Three people who ran taco trucks decided to spend their money on the parts nobody photographs. Masa is mixed and milled daily and fed through a tortilla machine imported from Mexico, which they cart back and forth to the trucks because it is worth the hassle. The al pastor is stacked and turned by hand, and the stated reason is that a motorised trompo dries out a lean cut. The kangaroo asada goes over a hibachi they had built, marinated in orange, garlic and Mexican oregano and served rare, which is the only way that meat is worth eating. Sofia Levin, food writer and MasterChef judge, says the tacos are as good as any she has eaten in Mexico City. Broadsheet put it on the Hot List. There is almost no sign on the door, which the founders chose so the room would be found slowly, and that is also the reason this is the first entry in the corpus to carry Melbourne's laneway-dining signature on evidence rather than on an address.