Tacos became his passion. Now his Wynwood street food is Miami’s obsession
Eduardo Lara came home from visiting his grandparents in Mexico one summer with a spit for roasting taco meat, a tortilla press and only a vague idea of what he planned to do with them. He was 15.
“I was obsessed,” he said. “I just knew that I needed it, I wanted it.”
Lara, 22, has finally figured out what to do with them. After apprenticing in some of Miami’s best kitchens, from Asian barbecue to upscale Mexican, Lara has started making some of Miami’s finest spit-roasted tacos. The meat roasts slowly, spinning vertically, dripping juices down from the whole pineapple atop it to the onion at its base. He slices the charred, outside edges of the al pastor meat right into a tortilla, tops it simply with an onion-cilantro-lime relish for a perfect bite.
Those in the know quietly started showing up to late-night taco roasts at his home during the pandemic. And that has led to his semi-permanent spot at J. Wakefield Brewery every Tuesday and Friday night, where Lara makes the “super callejero” kinds of tacos he fell in love with in his hometown of Mexico City.
“I couldn’t get that experience here in the States,” he said.
Lara never lost the close connections to his home country after his parents moved to Miami for his father’s job in telecommunications. Every summer, Lara would spend several weeks with grandparents in Mexico City, hanging with cousins and learning to love the street food he missed when he came back home. He ate his abuela’s sopes and gorditas and traveled with them through the country, eating food he couldn’t find anywhere else.
“Everything there tasted better, the colors were brighter. Everything feels more special because your time is limited,” he said.
The best part of his days, he said, was when his grandparents asked him to take a 10-minute walk to the corner bakery for fresh bread. He snapped to it knowing he would pass the taquera slicing meat from a spinning taco “trompo” on the way, and folding it into a warm, fresh-made tortilla.
“I’d find myself making excuses to get to the taco stand and eat tacos,” he said. “It was those 10 minutes where I could escape, talk to the taquera, and feel like a grown-up.”
He saved money for that annual summer trip at his after-school job fixing computers at Miami Country Day School and gigging at Haitian Baptist churches on Sundays, where he played the piano and a friend, the drums.
On one trip, while visiting a flea market, he saw a trompo and a taco press on sale, and his cousin helped him buy it for 1,500 pesos (about $80 at the time). He brought it home without a plan and for years it sat in his closet.
“I spent money on two things in Mexico: tacos and fireworks,” he said.
But as he struggled to find his way in school — “School in general was not for me,” he said — he came across chefs Luciana Giangrandi and Alex Meyer at their La Pollita taco truck in the Design District. He tasted the tacos, told them about his trompo and asked for a job working on the truck.
His sales pitch: “I’m Mexican and I have my own trompo,” he said, laughing. He got the job.
“He came in with a good attitude and asked a lot of questions. He pushed himself hard to learn and advance,” Meyer said.
Lara decided to learn the art of tacos from anyone who would teach him. At Kyu, the upscale Asian barbecue spot, he learned the art of slow-roasting over a live flame. From La Santa, which started as a taco truck and became a stand-alone in Little River, he learned seasoning, spicing and feeding large crowds out of a small space. At Mr. Mandolin, which focuses on Greek fare cooked on a spit, he learned how his trompo could roast meats flawlessly.
“The restaurants I worked at, I chose them specifically: Where can I learn the most?” he said. “It was a great way to learn.”
On his off days, he started doing Sunday pop-ups at his house in Little Haiti. By word of mouth, industry people — line cooks, waiters, bartenders, former bosses who were chefs — showed up after their shifts, often forming lines alongside his house.
“It’s awesome to see how far he’s come,” Meyer said. “He’s doing very traditional style tacos, which I really enjoy and few people are doing. He’s got that same focus on quality. And he’s doing awesome flavors.”
Soon, as many as 100 people were showing up, sitting on milk crates alongside the house, and staying as late as 3 a.m. He’d forget to post on his Instagram page, Wolf of Tacos, and people, fearing missing out, just started showing up. Lara found himself explaining to local police he was just making tacos to pay his rent.
“It was insane. It blew up,” he said.
Lara has started to cater or host more formal dinners at his house, announcing it on Instagram. But his favorite moments are twice a week, when he carves tacos off the trompo and recreates the Mexico City moments that led him to his passion.
Wolf of Tacos
Address: 120 NW 24th St., Wynwood outside of J. Wakefield Brewing
Dates: Tuesday and Friday, 6-10 p.m. or until sold out
More info: Instagram.com/thewolfoftacos
This story was originally published July 16, 2021 at 6:00 AM.
