San Antonio’s Naco Mexican Grayson keeps up high standards set by owners’ other concepts

Husband and wife team Francisco Estrada and Lizzeth Martinez have kept their Naco Mexican concept in the local news for a considerable time in foodie years. 

After garnering notice in 2018 with a streetside food truck, the pair launched a brick-and-mortar location in bucolic Los Patios. While that northern location has since closed, the accolades continue at more modest digs in a shipping container on Grayson Street near the Pearl, dubbed blending Mexico City with the northern borderlands. 

All the while, the duo has been active promoting not only themselves, but the city’s food scene as a whole. They are, as just one example, chef ambassadors to our UNESCO City of Gastronomy program. If the Current gave out stars, they would have a passel of them for civic engagement alone.

Allowing you to make your own astral evaluations, we don’t assign stars for food or anything else. However, others have done so in appraising Naco Mexican Grayson’s cuisine, billed as blending Mexico City with the northern borderlands. With all this in mind, we decided to turn the telescope on them ourselves. 

Breakfast at Naco Mexican Grayson ranges from the fanciful, including a couple of French toast options, to the familiar in the form of breakfast tacos. 

The tricolor concha toast variation is especially cute and Instagrammable. Blueberries and sliced strawberries add further pops of color to the already vibrant conchas, and drizzles of cream reinforce the aura of richness. 

Without the menu description, French toast might not come immediately to mind — the version with brioche is likely closer to the expected norm — though the cut sides of the conchas are toasty, and maybe even dipped in an egg mixture. Hard to tell, but the result is fun regardless, and a welcome addition to the morning routine. 

The conchas call out for coffee — which you can find a few steps away at Drippy’s tiny truck. 

A double espresso wouldn’t hurt with the breakfast tacos, either. Naco Mexican offers multiple standard options, although spinach, avocado and egg steps a little outside the norm. 

An even further step is represented by the Pokopus in corn with grilled octopus and chicharron prensado. That combination could either be a stunt pony or a bold new reinterpretation. Alas, I may never know, since it wasn’t available. 

Hence, a pivot to the prosaic: potato and chorizo in a flour tortilla, a favorite fully within the canon. House-made chorizo is mentioned on the menu. Regardless of its origins, the sausage is vibrantly flavored, the cubed potatoes perfect. This is a taco that always calls out for a jolt of salsa, and any of the three available here deliver a high-voltage one indeed. Proceed with caution. 

Naco Mexican Grayson is basically a two-woman operation, and the two saved me from further disappointment. I had heart and mouth set on another taco that skewed special: huitlacoche, the famous Mexican corn fungus, with carne asada in a blue corn tortilla. It had been 86’d, they told me, due to absence of asada — but then they determined it could be made with carne al pastor. Sold!

Huitlacoche, especially the canned variety, can come across a little murky-musky, but these were impressive, full kernels: plump, purple and just fungal enough. Combined in a lusty guisado with the pastor, I can’t imagine the carne asada version being any better. I do have a minor quibble in the texture of the al pastor; it’s more ground than sliced, but the taste was sensational regardless.

The same beef carried over into another day’s order of Los Chilangos: chilaquiles with eggs and Angus steak asada. (Some argue that chilaquiles don’t have eggs, that term being reserved for migas, but that’s a quarrel for another time.) Again, the coarsely ground beef didn’t really say steak — or Angus, for that matter. And again, the whole package transcended most misgivings. Crunchy tostadas, a whisper of salsa verde, crumbles of queso and lashings of crema … what’s not to like?

And finally, one of Naco’s signature dishes: brisket “simmered in our special Mexican spice blend for 9 hours.” The result isn’t notably spice-forward, but it is a triumph of something simple made exceptional with a little extra care and quality control. 

The taco automatically comes with a container of especially noteworthy roasted red salsa, and the pairing of the two yields a particularly moist result. The corn tortilla I had asked for in a moment of false purity was effectively destroyed by all that juiciness. The solution? Go for flour. It has inherently more wet resistance. Just like your favorite brand of paper towel.

Ad astra, after all.

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