Savor Scout › Food guides › birria
How to find good birria
Birria is a slow-braised chilli stew from Jalisco, traditionally goat, traditionally served in a bowl. The griddled cheese taco with a cup of consommé for dipping is a recent Tijuana-by-way-of-Los-Angeles invention, it is genuinely excellent, and it is not what birria means in Mexico.
What separates a good one from a bad one
- Consommé with fat on top — The braising liquid, skimmed and served for dipping. It should be deeply red, rich, and have a visible layer of chilli-stained fat. Thin, pale consommé means a short braise.
- Dried chillies, not chilli powder — Guajillo, ancho, chile de árbol, rehydrated and blended. The colour and the depth both come from there.
- Meat that shreds without effort — Four hours minimum. If it holds its shape it was rushed.
- Goat available, not just beef — Birria de chivo is the original. A place offering it is cooking the tradition rather than the trend.
- Tortillas dipped in the fat before griddling — That is what makes a quesabirria taco red and crisp. Dry-griddled tortillas with stew inside are something else.
What to order
- Quesabirria tacos with consommé — Three, with the cup. The format that made it famous.
- Birria de chivo in a bowl — The traditional service, with onion, cilantro and lime. Order this if it is on the menu.
- Mulita — Two tortillas, cheese and birria, like a small quesadilla.
- Ramen birria, knowingly — A recent hybrid. Not traditional, occasionally very good.
- Weekends — Many birrierias only run on weekends, which is a sign of a kitchen doing it properly rather than holding it all week.
How Savor Scout looks for it
Birria searches read for consommé and goat mentions, which separate a birrieria from a taqueria that added quesabirria to the menu in 2021. Weekend-only hours are treated as a positive signal here rather than a limitation.
Looking in a particular city?
Each of these opens Savor Scout with the location already set, so you can say what you want and it searches from there. It covers 1,000 US cities in total — these are simply the largest.
- New York, NY
- Los Angeles, CA
- Chicago, IL
- Houston, TX
- Philadelphia, PA
- Phoenix, AZ
- San Antonio, TX
- San Diego, CA
- Dallas, TX
- San Jose, CA
- Austin, TX
- Indianapolis, IN
- Jacksonville, FL
- San Francisco, CA
- Columbus, OH
- Charlotte, NC
- Fort Worth, TX
- Detroit, MI
- El Paso, TX
- Memphis, TN
- Seattle, WA
- Denver, CO
- Washington, DC
- Boston, MA
- Nashville, TN
- Baltimore, MD
- Oklahoma City, OK
- Louisville, KY
- Portland, OR
- Las Vegas, NV
- Milwaukee, WI
- Albuquerque, NM
- Tucson, AZ
- Fresno, CA
- Sacramento, CA
- Long Beach, CA
- Kansas City, MO
- Mesa, AZ
- Virginia Beach, VA
- Atlanta, GA
- Colorado Springs, CO
- Omaha, NE
- Raleigh, NC
- Miami, FL
- Oakland, CA
- Minneapolis, MN
- Tulsa, OK
- Cleveland, OH
- Wichita, KS
- Arlington, TX
- New Orleans, LA
- Bakersfield, CA
- Tampa, FL
- Honolulu, HI
- Aurora, CO
- Anaheim, CA
- Santa Ana, CA
- St. Louis, MO
- Riverside, CA
- Corpus Christi, TX
Related food guides
When you might want this
- What to eat when you're hungover
- Where to eat late at night
- Where to take friends visiting from out of town