Co-owner looking to her roots for Laughing Taco’s style
Lucia Muñoz has the menus of taquerias in her hometown of Monterrey, Mexico, memorized. That’s because they’re so brief.
A taqueria might have just beef and pork tacos. “That’s it,” she said.
“Either you felt like eating pork or you didn’t,” she said. There are two bottles of salsa, red and green. “And lime, always lime,” she said.
“That’s what I miss, the simplicity of it,” Muñoz said.
When she returns to visit family, she stops in at Tacos El Primo in downtown Monterrey. “They have the spiciest salsa in town, and it’s just tradition,” she said.
“That’s where I took Justin,” she said, Justin being her husband, chef Justin Carlisle of Ardent and Red Light Ramen. “He thought it was fabulous.”
Now the couple are gearing up to open their own taqueria in Milwaukee, Laughing Taco at 1033 S. 1st St. in Walker’s Point. The opening now is projected for early June, the couple said.
They’re keeping the menu simple, four kinds of tacos. Laughing Taco will have both flour tortillas and corn, Muñoz said, with the hope that tortillas eventually will be made with corn from the Carlisle family farm in Sparta.
The beef for the tacos will come from the family farm; the pork will be cooked on a vertical rotisserie. Another option will be vegetarian; the couple has been trying out fillings with potato and with cactus.
The restaurant itself, a fairly small space that will hold about 20 customers, is nearly ready. It’s mainly decorated in white, a little like a taco laboratory, with pops of red from metal chairs and pots.
“I wanted it to be clean and bright,” Muñoz said.
The taqueria’s name ultimately plays with language and is a nod to Muñoz. “For those Spanish speakers, it’s what we call the game of words,” she said. The name Laughing Taco said quickly in Spanish also can sound like “he is running.”
“I am a runner and I like to laugh, so that