Photo: AI-generated imageA Dallas-born taqueria doing genuine Mexico City street food inside Assembly Food Hall — spit-grilled meats, hand-pressed tortillas, and a cheese-crusted specialty most Nashville menus don't bother attempting.
Chilangos built its name in Dallas on the kind of street-food specificity that's easy to fake and hard to actually execute: tortillas pressed by hand to order, salsas made from scratch, and meats built around a trompo-style spit rather than a flattop. The Assembly Food Hall stall, run under chef Joel Mendoza, brought that same approach to downtown Nashville, where Mexico City-specific street food is still fairly rare next to the city's more generic Tex-Mex options.
The menu runs through the expected roster — carne asada, al pastor, pollo, barbacoa — but the item worth seeking out is la costra, a taco built around a shell of cheese griddled directly on the flattop until it crisps, then piled with meat and wrapped in a flour tortilla. It's a specific, early-2000s Mexico City street-food move that most taquerias outside of Texas don't put on the menu at all.
It's a solid stop for anyone working through Assembly's food hall lineup who wants something with more specificity than a generic 'tacos' stall, and it holds up fine as a quick, inexpensive lunch on its own.
Highlights
- —Try la costra — a cheese-crusted taco shell piled with meat, a Mexico City street-food specialty
- —Tortillas pressed by hand to order
- —Trompo-style spit-grilled al pastor
- —Fast, inexpensive counter-service lunch inside the food hall