San Antonio Express-News (Sunday)
THE area’s BEST tortillas
5 categories sampled from 3 notable areas
Tortillas are everywhere in this city, from the fanciest of restaurants to the most humble of grab-and-go corner stores. And then there’s the dozens of tortillerías churning them out by the thousands every day.
Over the past two months, the San Antonio Express-News has conducted an exhaustive survey of the city’s best tortillerías in three tortilla-rich neighborhoods: the near West Side, the stretch of Blanco between Basse and Hildebrand and downtown stretching into the South Side.
After sampling nearly 100 tortillas from almost two dozen tortillerías, we bring you our picks for the best tortillas in the city in five categories: white corn tortillas, yellow corn tortillas, flour tortillas, whole-wheat tortillas and tortilla chips.
Best white corn tortillas: Adelita Tamales & Tortilla Factory
This venerable spot makes corn and flour tortillas in about a dozen permutations, and the cream of its crop is white corn tortillas made with freshly nixtamalized and stoneground kernels. A few competitors came close — it’s harder than you’d imagine to find bad tortillas in San Antonio — but none hit perfection as consistently as this business that dates back more than 80 years.
These rustic, chubby tortillas are flecked through with ever-so-slightly coarser micro fragments of corn kernels. When tossed on a griddle, the fragrance of Adelita’s tortillas blooms to fill the kitchen with a heady perfume. They remain tender and pliant with a perfect chew and are ideal for nearly any tortillabased application you can cook up.
You can find these in standard 6-inch rounds or a smaller street taco size, and both are sure to keep you craving just one more bite.
Adelita Tamales & Tortilla Factory, 1130 Fresno Drive, 210-733-5352, adelitatamales.com, Facebook: @AdelitaTamales
Best yellow corn tortillas: Tortillería Valeria
Yellow corn tortillas are hard to find in this city, but this newcomer — they opened in late 2020 — offers them alongside white corn tortillas and flour tortillas. And once again, the shop’s mastery starts with nixtamalized corn ground in house.
These yellow corn tortillas are a little on the smaller side, measuring just over 5 inches in diameter. They’re also bursting with flavor and aroma — a near impossible thing to miss when you walk out the door of this tiny shop. The bag in
your hand will radiate an irresistible steamy invitation to tear into at least one tortilla on your drive home.
Yellow corn, which has a slightly lower moisture content although a very similar flavor to white corn, typically makes tortillas that are a bit more thin and brittle, although Valeria’s version holds up beautifully when heated and stuffed with fillings for tacos. They also fry into noteworthy tortilla chips.
Tortillería Valeria, 1650 W. Woodlawn Ave., 210-908-9199, Facebook: Tortilleria Valeria
Best flour tortillas: Victoria Tortilla & Tamales Factory
This was by far the hardest category to narrow down because San Antonio is blessed with numerous tortillerías making exceptional flour tortillas.
But based on multiple visits, none could top Victoria. That shouldn’t come as a surprise. This tortillería has been serving the city for about 70 years — plenty of time to master the craft.
Victoria’s flour tortillas are as close to homemade as we found in the city. They’re gloriously irregular in shape and well mottled with freckles of toasty brown blisters.
And they have so much more than just good looks going for them. These tortillas are flaky, creamy and perfectly seasoned. They balloon into billowing pillows of steam with a nutty and bready fragrance, and they remain almost impossibly soft and tender.
While Victoria’s flour tortillas are perfect for breakfast tacos, there’s a good chance you’ll simply wind up noshing on them out-of-hand. These stars don’t need a supporting cast to shine.
Victoria Tortilla & Tamales Factory, 737 Division Ave., 210922-5274, lavictoriafactory.com Facebook: @VictoriaFactorySA
Best whole-wheat tortillas: Sanitary Tortilla Co.
Frankly, it’s hard to go wrong with any type of tortilla at this downtown institution. They’ve been in the tortilla game for about a century, and it shows.
Sanitary’s whole-wheat tortillas were several steps ahead of the pack based on our repeated visits. The leading edge comes from a remarkably tender and flexible texture that’s more like a white flour tortilla than the relatively grittier and tougher wholewheat varieties we tried at other shops.
When heated, these tortillas also behave more like white flour, puffing up slightly and forming flaky layers. They develop a rich, nutty aroma that’s balanced by just enough salt to make these the most craveworthy whole-wheat tortillas you’ll find in town.
Sanitary Tortilla Co., 623 Urban Loop, 210-226-9209, sanitarytortillacompany.com, Facebook: @sanitarytortilla
Best tortilla chips: Panadería Tortillería Maya
Most of us buy tortilla chips in the supermarket, and that means crunching away on a remarkably uniform product that’s designed to endure the jostle of being shelved and manhandled by customers and to stay crisp for weeks on end.
At Panadería Tortillería Maya, you get a completely different experience that rivals the best homemade chips. They’re freshly fried into irregular, flaky, delicate delights with an almost airy quality that melts away without feeling greasy. They’re doused with salt that clusters in random pockets across the chips, making for a welcome surprise hit of salinity every few bites.
These rustic chips are fried to a deeper brown than anything you’ll buy in the grocery store, which coaxes a caramelized sweetness out of the corn they’re made from. They’re a perfect vehicle for your next batch of salsa or guacamole, and they make a mean batch of nachos as well.
Panadería Tortillería Maya, 3809 Blanco Road, 210-627-6292, Facebook: Panadería Tortillería Maya