Lechón love: This Coral Gables restaurant serves the best tacos in Florida, survey says

Tacos are everywhere in Miami, and for this, we are grateful.

But a national website says that a Coral Gables restaurant has the best tacos in the entire state.

According to the website Eat This, Not That and Yelp, Caja Caliente, home of the original Cuban taco, serves lechón tacos that are the best tacos in Florida. What makes them so good? As one Yelp reviewer wrote: “Their lechón is marinated and cooked to the point of perfection without being dry.”

How did Eat This, Not That come to this conclusion? Yelp provided the list of the best taco places in every state, then identified businesses in the restaurants and food categories with the most reviews mentioning our favorite word “taco.”

Caja Caliente owner Mika Leon, who as you might imagine was quite pleased with the ranking, says the lechón tacos were inspired by her Cuban family.

“Every Noche Buena, Abuelo would make pig roast, pork shoulder in his mojo,” she says. “So when we were opening our restaurant, I asked my mother, ‘What do you think if we do street tacos L.A. style with our Cuban recipe?’ She thought I was crazy. But the star taco, the one people would always talk about, is that lechón taco. People hadn’t seen it before. It’s so special and near to our hearts.”

Like all restaurants in Miami-Dade County, Caja Caliente is not open for indoor sit-down service due to COVID-19 restrictions. But Leon says the city of Coral Gables allowed her to expand outdoor seating. You can also order takeout or follow Caja Caliente’s roaming food truck @cajacaliente on Instagram.

Leon also says she’s close to finding a new spot for a brick-and-mortar location in Midtown. The restaurant’s permanent food truck in Wynwood closed in May due to a change in Miami’s zoning process.

This story was originally published August 17, 2020 at 12:17 PM.