Tacos are not just for Tuesdays anymore. In recent years, the Seacoast’s taco game has been upped by many great taquerias opening in southeastern New Hampshire and southern Maine. Some have opened multiple locations, creating small chains feeding off their tacos’ popularity.
The options are pretty much endless. Here’s a dozen Seacoast taco specialists that make every day Taco Tuesday:
Cinco’s Cantina | Dover, Rochester, Epping
Details: 446 Central Ave., Dover, 603-343-4729; 1 Brickyard Square, Epping, 603-734-2191; 22 South Main St., Rochester, 603-403-8027; cincoscantina.com
Cinco’s Cantina opened in Dover as Cinco de Mayo Bar and Grill, the dream of brothers Crescencio and Miguel Tellez, who were born and raised in northern Mexico. They wanted to create a welcoming place to serve the authentic, handmade, fresh food just like they had back home. In 2020 just before the COVID-19 pandemic shutdown, they opened a second location, Cinco’s Cantina, in Epping. In 2023, they rebranded the Dover location to Cinco’s Cantina and in 2024 opened a third location in Rochester.
The small chain’s expansion speaks to the success of the brothers’ business dream, but also to their commitment to give back to the communities that support them. The restaurants hold regular Fiesta Fundraisers where a local non-profit receives 20% of an evening’s proceeds, sponsor many local community events with monetary donations and make in-kind donations of food to support nonprofit events. The restaurants’ name is often on the back of local sports teams’ and event T-shirts.
The restaurant also offers immersive field trips for local students in activities like tortilla making and table-side guacamole making. Classes come to the restaurant to “eat, learn and speak Spanish,” according to its website, noting the sessions are led by the restaurant’s Spanish-speaking team members.
In September, Cinco’s Cantina reached a milestone of having donated $100,000 to local schools, nonprofits and youth and civic organizations. The city of Dover recognized the restaurant with a proclamation recognizing its commitment to giving back to the communities it serves.
Cinco’s cooks up a large variety of Mexican food of all kinds, but their tacos often receive rave reviews in social media posts and on restaurant recommendation sites.
Cinco’s taco menu lists nine entrees from Tacos de Nada, featuring melted cheese and seasoned potatoes and a sliced avocado salad; to its Seafood Tacos, featuring shrimp or haddock; to Tacos Al Pastor with pastor-style pork and grilled pineapple. Their Birria Taco features stewed beef topped with melted cheese and fresh sliced radishes, onions and cilantro served with birria salsa and lime. There are also Tacos Paseados, which are grilled bean tacos; Grilled Pina Tacos with onions, peppers and pineapple; and Escuinapa Tacos with seasoned grilled shrimp and melted cheese served with black bean dipping sauce.
There’s also a Street Tacos entree of three tacos with your choice of grilled chicken, grilled steak, pork carnitas, chorizo or cochinita pibil.
With its commitment to authentic cuisine and community support, Cinco’s has been named a finalist for Best of the Seacoast in Seacoast Media Group’s Community Choice Awards each of the last five years.
Loco Coco’s Tacos | Kittery
Details: 36 Walker St., Kittery, 207-438-9322, locococostacos.com
Family-owned and serving Kittery since 2004, Loco Coco’s Tacos offers 10 different tacos from Traditional-Style to American-Style to Mexican-Style, Barbacoa, Special Carnitas, Fried Baja Shrimp and Banh Mi Pork among others, all made with soft corn tortillas, topped with cilantro and white onion, and served with tomatillo salsa and a squeeze of lime. You can order one or an entree of three. It also offers an entree Tacos Di Birria, which features three corn tortillas dipped in beef consomme filled with slow roasted pulled beef with pepper jack cheese, and served with an adobo chili sauce topped with cilantro and white onion as is Loco Coco’s custom.
Santiago’s Baja Grill | Hampton
Details: 20 Depot Square, Hampton, 603-777-2595, santiagoshampton.com
Everything at Santiago’s Baja Grill is scratch made and filled with Baja California flavors “from the sauces to the salsas,” according to its website. Named after the main character in Ernest Hemingway’s “Old Man and the Sea,” who set out to catch a giant marlin, Santiago’s tacos are seafood-based and Baja-style. It also offers a Taco Plate entree where you choose two from a list of grilled chicken, spicy shrimp, veggies, carnitas or smoked pork, Carne Asada, grilled red snapper or blackened swordfish. Baja style means the taco is topped with pico, purple cabbage, cheddar jack, and Santiago’s Cool Sauce on a flour tortilla. The Carnitas is served “street-style,” its website says, with black bean salsa, chipotle aioli, cotija and cilantro. There’s also a Three Taco Lunch option with the same choices and style, just a smaller portion. There’s often a daily special you can order by the taco.
Burrito Loco Mexican Grill | Hampton, Epping
Details: 625 Lafayette Road, Hampton, 603-601-7629; 23 Fresh River Road, Epping, 603-734-4410, burritoloconh.com
At Burrito Loco Mexican Grill, you can build your own Street Tacos, choosing from 10 different meat fillings and between hard and soft corn as well as flour tortillas, and many, many toppings from picos to salsas, and mixing and matching them all. Or you can choose the fish or shrimp tacos.
But you haven’t lived until you’ve had the Quesabirra tacos with Birria-style cooked beef folded into three corn tortillas with shredded cheese, onions, cilantro and served with a side of consommé for dipping. Go loco, live it up!
Vida Cantina | Portsmouth
Details: 2456 Lafayette Road, Portsmouth, 603-501-0648, vidacantinanh.com
Vida Cantina offers up eight inventive flavorful tacos including Fried Avocado with cilantro aioli, corn salsa and queso fresco; the House Chorizo with chile pork, queso fresco, pickled red onion and orange aioli; the Confit Pork Belly with cotija cheese and mango salsa; The Masa Fried Shrimp with seared or fried shrimp, pickled red onion, baja slaw and tartar sauce; and The Sweetie Pie with spicy sweet potato, salsa macha, pina salsa and peanut red cabbage slaw, among others. Taco specials pop up, too, like the Lamb Shank Birria Tacos or Carnitas-Seared Local Tuna Tacos with chipotle soy marinade, kale, avocado verde and fresno chile, depending on the day or the happy hour.
Barrio | Portsmouth
Details: 319 Vaughan St., Portsmouth, 603-380-9081, barrio-tacos.com/locations/portsmouth
Barrio transports you to Mexico with the artistic flair of its decor and cuisine. Once there, you can build your own tacos from so many choices. You can also indulge in one of El Jefe’s Selecciones — eight creative takes on the everyday staple. There’s the La Tierra that begins with what Barrio calls the bombshell — a flour soft and corn hard tortilla with queso and crumpled bacon. Coca-Cola marinated steak, pan-seared portobello mushrooms, carmelized onions and poblanos, chihuahua, secret sauce and cilanto aioli fills the bombshell. Another of El Jefe’s favorites is The Codfather, a flour shell with blackened cod, pineapple salsa, mango habanero, guacamole and cilantro-lime rice. They’re all over-the-top tacos. Or you can take out a Barrio Box, with a choice of two El Jefe Selecciones Tacos with a side.
Barrio also dreams up monthly specials like September’s feature a Chicken Shawarma Taco with grilled chicken shawarma, tomatoes, red onion, lettuce, fried chick peas, garlic sauce and secret sauce all in a pita shell; or the Cubano Taco with ham, gruyere, pulled pork, pickles, garlic butter, mustard and pork rinds in a warm flour tortilla.
Margaritas | Portsmouth, Dover, Exeter
Details: 775 Lafayette Road, Portsmouth, 603-431-5828; 93 Portsmouth Avenue, Exeter, 603-772-2274; 23 Members Way, Dover, 603-743-6363; margs.com
Under Margaritas’ appetizers menu, you can find a Street Taco Flight, which is a great way to try a variety. Served on fresh corn tortillas, you get carnitas, chicken, birria and beef taco tastes. Under the Mains, there are no less than ten tacos to choose from including Tacos Americanas, Carnitas Elote Tacos and Grilled Baja Tacos. Margaritas offers six different sauces — crema, fuego, tomatillo, avocado crema, picante and chipotle crema — to tailor your taco. In a not-so-common offering, Margaritas will serve all these taco varieties “naked in lettuce leaves,” as the menu says.
Lupe’s 55 Cantina | Hampton
Details: 275 Ocean Blvd., Hampton, 603-601-6164 lupes55cantina.net
Lupe’s 55 Cantina has all the traditional tacos you might expect … and then there’s the ones you wouldn’t. There’s the Pulpo y Papas Taco with char-grilled octopus on a corn tortilla with avocado, fried potatoes, chimichurri rojo salsa and cilantro; and The Fable Birria Tacos, a plant-based birria made with braised “beef” shiitake mushrooms in crispy corn tortillas with melted chihuahua cheese, onions and cilantro with a mushroom consomme dipping sauce. It also has an entree of Vampire Tacos, two tacos of double-layered soft corn tortillas stuffed with lots of melted chihuahua cheese and grilled to create a crispy edge served with Spanish rice, refried beans, pico de gallo and side salsa. Diners can add additional toppings such as El Pastor, Tinga Chicken and Pescado among others.
Los Olas Taqueria | Exeter and Hampton, NH and Wells, ME
Details: 356 Lafayette Road, Hampton, (603) 967-4880; 30 Portsmouth Avenue, Exeter, (603) 418-8901; 1517 Post Road, Wells, (In the Wells Corner Shopping Plaza), (207) 216-9711; lasolastaqueria.com
Founded in Exeter in 2008, Las Olas Taqueria offers 10 taco choices at all three of its locations from a Sweet Potato Taco to a Mushroom Taco to a Soyrizo Taco to a Fajita Veggie Taco among others. You order by the taco and can customize each. Choose a hard corn, soft corn, or steamed flour tortilla, and topping cheese, rice, beans, pico de gallo, sour cream, lettuce, cilantro, and lime. Then pick your protein — chicken, steak, pork, ancho beef, chorizo, or make it vegetarian with a choice of soyrizo, sweet potatoes, mushrooms or fajitas.
Las Olasa also offers a Street Tacos plate with three tacos and a daily special taco to enjoy.
Hugo’s Mexican Grill | Epping
Details: 2 Water St., Epping, 603-734-4063, hugosmexgrill.com
Hugo’s Mexican Grill offers tacos made to order with a choice of 10 main fillings, 10 fresh toppings, three extra helpings — guacamole, queso blanco or grilled veggies, and three tortillas — soft and hard corn and flour. Patrons on social media say it’s obvious Hugo’s is family-owned because it is so welcoming and the service is great … and fast. You can tailor your taco specifically to your liking, and then create a completely different one for your second helping with all the trimmings.
Los Cantaros | North Hampton
Details: 43 Lafayette Road, North Hampton, 603-964-0369, loscantarosmexicanrestaurants.com
Los Cantaros’ Mexican Street Tacos are one of the stars of its menu, according to social media reviews, and includes five 4-inch corn tortilla tacos served with fresh onions, cilantro, lime wedges and hot salsa and the choice of two meats from carne asada, pollo al adobo, al pastor, birria and carnitas, which are all so good it makes it very hard to choose. That comes from a diner who moved here from Texas a long time ago and who says “these are the best tacos I have found that remind me of my former home.”
Its El Gringo-style Tacos are three hard-shelled corn tortillas and three soft flour tortillas served with lettuce and shredded cheese with choice of ground beef or shredded cheese. Its Quesebirrias are three tacos with beef birria on a corn tortilla with cheese, served with cilantro, onion and consomme. Its Fish or Shrimp Tacos are rolled in a soft flour tortilla and served with rice and beans with a choice of lettuce and cheese or chipotle mayo and lime cabbage.
Dora Taqueria and Cantina | Rochester
Details: 667 Columbus Ave., Rochester, 603-403-4394, 781-203-7007. dorastaqueriarochester.com
Dora Taqueria and Cantina celebrates Mexican street food, according to its website, and wants to be “your neighborhood taco spot.” It serves up Mary Tierra Tacos, which are Mexico’s surf and turf and are filled with steak and shrimp, and Tacos Caribenos topped with Caribbean salsa featuring mango and pineapple. Its street-style tacos have meat marinated for 24 hours, are handmade and served on a soft corn tortilla with rice and beans, and a side of its homemade spicy salsa and salsa verde, according to its website. You can choose from chicken, steak, carnitas, cochinita pibil, chorizo, pastor, veggie shrimp, fish, calamari or salmon.
This article originally appeared on Portsmouth Herald. Reporting by Jane Murphy.
