Burritos, tacos, empanadas, quesadillas, arepas, Peruvian chicken, they’re all my favorites. Obviously we have way more Latin Americans in the USA so it makes sense that it would be way more popular here but the food is so tasty, is it common to have these types or restaurants or to make it at home?
Edit: I love posting questions like these because I always learn something really unexpected. I had no idea texmex tacos were so popular in Norway that it’s a bit of a tradition to eat them on fridays.
42 comments
In Poland, not really. You can of course find some pricey restaurants specialising in this type of cuisine, and also in supermarkets taco bread is available, but I don’t think people make such food very often.
No, you can find quesadilias in beer restaurants sometimes and big cities have a couple of thematic restaurants from each big latin America countries, but generally speaking it is a terra incognita for us.
Not particularly. TexMex restaurants aren’t common for the most part, I’d say. I imagine you might be able to find a few of them in larger cities, but that’s about it.
It’s not super well known, to the average portuguese person, when compared to other foreign cuisines, like italian food for example (which is widely known, with *pizzerias* and italian themed restaurants spread well around the entire country).
Really depends on what groups immigrated to the country and the city.
Here in Geneva there’s an oddly large amount of Peruvian restaurants (at least 5 off the top of my head). But there’s a pleasant surprise of other Latin American cuisines as well. Tons of Brazilian ones (which makes sense considering the number of Brazilian immigrants here), some Bolivian, Ecuadorian, Colombian, etc.
Reminder that Geneva’s population is about 200K, so that makes it extra impressive to me.
The Mexican ones are hit or miss though because Mexican cuisine is popular enough that non-Mexicans decide to open these swanky/fusion bars that are a disaster in terms of authenticity.
Texmex is hard to find, and I’ve encountered some in Spain and they were pretty terrible.
In my hometown there was a TexMex restaurant for about twenty years, but it closed down recently. This restaurant used to be quite popular here. Cant speak of other cities, maybe they still have them.
Tortillas and other Mexican food is readily available at the supermarket. Even the cheaper stores like Lidl and Aldi sell them.
In Sweden, every food store has a “tex mex” shelf, and a lot of people eat tacos and similar food as a family meal. Especially on fridays.
Yeah texmex is. Tortillas and tacos. People make them by themselves at home and we have Taco Bell here as well. Although what we eat here is probably far from authentic. I’ve never heard of any of those other foods.
Very popular here, but it’s almost a cliche at this point for Americans to complain about it and say that it’s full-on inedible (I’ve never heard anything from Latin Americans about it but I doubt they’d be impressed either).
Not very popular in Spain. You can find some Mexican restaurants in cities but other cuicines are more common.
In my small town for example there is a place with Argentinian empanadillas and another with Venezuelan arepas and there is not a Mexican Restaurant.
Outside of Latin America food there are several Chinese and kebabs (like all over Spain) and there is a Sushi bar and an Indian restaurant too, even a Maroccan one.
As far as I know not really. There’s restaurants for everything so you’ll probably find them but I don’t think I’ve ever eaten or seen someone eat a burrito for example.
In Norway it’s pretty popular, at least taco, burritos and such. It’s become some sort of a national dish, Norwegians eat taco on a weekly basis and in Oslo there are a few restaurants which seems popular.
The restaurants are not. I mean we have an amazing restaurant scene in Copenhagen with food from all over, but they’re not a common type of restaurant like e.g pizzerias or sushi places are.
Extremely inauthentic nachos, burritos and chili con/sin carne is common in home cooking and usually considered some of the kid friendly, basic stuff to cook in my experience.
Here we have something called ‘French tacos’. They’re mostly an insult to actual tacos, and an insult to food in general. The only time I ate one I thought I was going to have a heart attack midway through. Even kebabs can be considered healthy compared to French tacos.
Unfortunately no. There are not many mexican restaurants here and even less restaurants that are actually good. It‘s sad because I really like that cuisine but finding them is difficult
Texmex is, actual latin food is extremely hard to come by but finding good ingredients for mexican (salsas and tortillas) is rapidly getting easier and better at least here in norway. I have no real idea for other cuisines but I strongly doubt it.
I dont think real mexican food will gain a lot of popularity to be fair, the flavor profiles are out of most people’s Cup of tea in my experience. Some regional cuisines are very meat heavy or have too exotic ingredients which elevate the price to the point of not being attractive. At most it’ll just be simple mexican fast food/snacks.
It’s a well-established historical fact that TexMex cuisine is traditionally norwegian and that it was only brought over to Mexico with Leiv Eriksson
In my city, it’s quite rare…we have like 3 ‘Mexican’ restaurants… the food is pretty much standard Tex Mex, the quality is ok (but very overpriced).
I tend to make that kind of stuff at home if and when I want it.
Enchiladas most often.
If Taco Bell counts, then ok we have two restaurants in malls. I kind of like it actually. The concept of TexMexCali is actually interesting. There are also a few restaurants which say they sell “Mexican cuisine”, but honestly have nothing to do with Mexican cusine and are more like TexMex style. As for “latin”, I presume the OP talks about latin America cuisine and there we have Brazilian restaurants of course, but sadly I don’t know any place where I can have an arepa, a menudo soup or even a tamale around here.
>Obviously we have way more Latin Americans in the USA so it makes sense that it would be way more popular here
There are 1.2M latin americans in Spain (not counting descendants). In percentage we don’t lag far behind.
>is it common to have these types or restaurants or to make it at home?
Peruvian and mexican food are relatively common in the Big cities and Venezuelan food IS very widespread in the canary islands. Arepas and tequeños are slowly getting a hold here in Madrid.
One of the peculiarities of our respective latin populations IS that they’re quite complementary, which makes sense. Spain and the US are the largest latin american emigration destinations, so we Split the pie.
That means for example that mexicans overwhelming tend to go to the US (so we have few) while peruvians and ecuatorians are more evenly divided.
The way this reflects on food IS quite interesting. For example, peruvian food IS more mainstream in Spain and Ceviche has been popular for quite a while. My father grew Up eating papa rellena.
TexMex has found It’s way through fast food chains in the latter years and It’s becoming more popular.
Furthermore there’s the point that Spanish and latin american food Share Many aspects, which comes in handy. Many latin americans have told me, their food in Spain tends to be topnotch, because we change very little.
We get far more variety and better quality than the rest of Europe (to the point once a Venezuelan asked here if we had tried their food and the general answer was: Only in Spain 😅)
So yeah, latín american food IS popular in Spain, but the one we get here is very different from the one in the US.
Take into account this IS my POV from Madrid. You’ll find a very different answer for say: Teruel or even Zaragoza. Afterall, there’s 400.000 latinos in my region. One in 16 people IS a Latino inmigrant.
Sure it is, nachos are always welcome.
Also, having friends from southern Italy I got a thing for spicy and chili XD
The only Latin American restaurants you’ll find are ‘Argentinian’ steakhouses.
TexMex can be found in any city of decent size.
Couple of texmex restaurants in my area available (central Germany) … Usually with an all you can eat menu. Pretty popular actually
I’ve never had any of these. I think it’s relatively easy to find places that offer that kind of food in bigger French cities but other than that, if I had to generalize, I would tend to say it’s not very popular. At least not where I live. I know of a TexMex restaurant in my city but I’ve never been there. I wouldn’t be against trying though! I just never really think about this option.
Venezuelan and Argentinian food are the latest trend here in Madrid.
Most LatAm restaurants are Tex-Mex, Mexican and Peruvian, and in Latin American dominated neighborhoods you can also find Colombian and Dominican bars.
Outside the biggest cities, it’s mostly Tex-Mex.
~~Also there are a few Taco Bells here too~~
Not in Poland.
It is possible to get Latin food, but I imagine it’s also expensive, due to rarity.
Central and south american food became trendy in Bucharest in the last few years but it’s just a few restaurants and fast foods.
Personally I like MAT (Masa Artisanal Taqueria) because they make interesting blends but I’m a hipster.
There are also american restaurants that serve some texmex but also stereotypical american food.
All of this is pretty niche. The most popular fast food is saorma.
They are popular in Ireland, especially burritos. About 10 years ago burrito places started to spring up across Dublin. It led to very heated debate amongst university students regarding where sold the best burritos in Dublin. It was known as the burrito wars:
https://universitytimes.ie/2013/01/the-burrito-wars/
In the U.K. – not really but it seems to be changing slowly. My wife is Colombian and there is an underground network of Colombian (mainly) women who coordinate (via WhatsApp) and send food around the country. There’s even a Colombian chef who, on the side, makes Colombian food and sends it frozen all over the U.K. It’s really good.
I live in Bristol and Latin food is almost non existent apart from a few Chilean and Colombian cafes with a few more Mexican places.
London has a Colombian area (Elephant and Castle) which has Colombian shops and restaurants.
For some reason it seems like, in the U.K. at least, latin people aren’t really grouped in the same area and so it’s all a bit disparate.
Yes. We actually eat [the most pizza in the world per capita](https://www.puretravel.com/blog/2020/04/06/who-eats-the-most-pizza-in-the-world-the-answer-may-surprise-you/). And having taco on Fridays is extremely popular – so much so that a [whole section](https://scontent.fosl3-2.fna.fbcdn.net/v/t1.6435-9/86971494_2435820939969055_2672190972099559424_n.jpg?_nc_cat=103&ccb=1-5&_nc_sid=8bfeb9&_nc_ohc=y2ZR6-RVxFoAX-xqjfE&_nc_ht=scontent.fosl3-2.fna&oh=00_AT-fCsVH1T0ZUv329_TKjXrsjvTCbG1zXWAGWUXsniNfeA&oe=61FD6CD0) is dedicated to taco in every food store.
In Oslo we have mostly TexMex places with a couple of authentic Mexican. We’ve Peruvian (there’s a guy who makes amazing alfajores) and Chilean food afaik and I think I’ve heard of a Brazilian place but can’t confirm. Fredag taco and store ingredients are a big thing but I can’t with those. Taco at my place is from scratch (everything but the tortillas because I can’t ration more than 4-5 hours for dinner even on weekends).
Also, my boyfriend likes the food as spicy as I (Balkan, adopted by an Indian group in college) do so we go through spices like they’re going out of business.
You may be interested to know that the first restaurant in the world to call itself “Tex Mex” was actually in Paris, France, not Paris, Texas!
Claude Benayoun opened his restaurant The Studio in 1983, after falling in love with the cuisine while visiting the Southwest. Coincidentally, in 1986 the film Betty Blue sparked a fad in France for all things Southwestern: cowboy boots, tequila, and yes, Tex Mex food.
The first restaurant in the States to call itself Tex Mex was Chuy’s in Austin, but not until 1986. Small world!
https://wearemitu.com/wearemitu/culture/food-and-drink/history-tex-mex-food/
https://www.washingtonpost.com/archive/lifestyle/food/1986/08/03/americans-take-paris/2a3181d9-6c6c-44e8-8442-817ec496f905/
Leave it to the French to appreciate a good thing when they taste it, without letting themselves get bogged down by pointless “tradition” and “authenticity.” Tex Mex is as authentic as any other regional Mexican variant. It’s not Tejanos’ fault the border got moved south. Diana Kennedy can kiss my grits.
It’s extremely popular in home cooking terms. Fajitas is an extremely common home cooked dish and that’s Tex-Mex I believe.
I’d be surpised to find a big supermarket in England that doesn’t have a Tex-Mex section in it, though we probably wouldn’t call it Tex-Mex. Generally you’d get kits to make Tacos, Enchiladas, etc.
I will say they’re heavily adapted for conveinience and UK tastes so not authentic.
Definitely increasing in Portugal with the immigration of latinos, and the globalization of cultures in general. You can buy ingredients from all over the world in a supermarket to try for yourself.
But a new texmex restaurant just opened up in my city, went a few weeks ago and it was amazing
Here in north Italy, I’d say it is not popular neither eating nor having TexMex restaurants (exception for some fast foods/steak houses that offer some TexMex food, that I wouldn’t consider properly TexMex restaurants).
Brasilian restaurants are certainly more popular.
Not that much here. Even tho we have a rather big southamerican community, it’s not really that popular among spaniards and the businesses cater more to inmigrant population.
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Still you can find “tex-mex” food rather easy
Many Mexican restaurants in Prague, both fast food and diners. Pretty popular food, but I’d say Indian, Chinese, Vietnamese, Japanese, Italian and Turkish cuisines are as popular here
Latin means a whole different thing here lmao
and yeah, there is some texmex food around here and some real mexican food. In Spain we get a lot of latinoamericans too so you can have food from every country, but ofc there are less of those type of restaurants and more local Spanish ones
I’m from Nice, France and there are some
Mexican restaurants here, although I doubt about the authenticity of a lot of them. We don’t have a huge Latin American population in France. Still some Brazilian and Peruvian restaurants as well. In supermarkets, you can buy Tex-Mex (but definitely not Mexican) El Paso products (tortilla, fajita, barquitas, burritos,…). (We have Taco Bell and O’Tacos (French brand I think). The funny thing is that in France if you find a place that markets itself as a Taco place (like O’Tacos), there is a 80-90% chance their tacos are in fact a sort of toasted burrito with things like Algerian sauce (French Marketing invention), samurai sauce (same) or Brazilia sauce (same again) with French fries, nuggets, ground beef, smelly French cheese and everything you want. To make the difference, they are sometime called “French Tacos”. Nothing to do with real mexican tacos and the ones in the US. Obviously flour tortilla btw.
I don’t know who got the idea to sell these and call them tacos but I hate him because now everybody who doesn’t know shit about food assumes that’s true Mexican food. And people think that fried chicken/falafel/raclette cheese/Indiana sauce (another invention) is a Mexican dish. 😑👍🏼
Nope. There’s technically a Taco Bell in my city but it’s always deserted. Mexican food is pretty fancy, tho I imagine it’s a lot more commonplace in Amsterdam.
Texan in Germany here. My city has ~200k people. In our city there is one empanada restaurant (the owners are from South America), one Cuba-themed restaurant (German owner, only some menu items are remotely Cuban), and at least four „Mexican“ restaurants.
I have been to three of the four “Mexican” restaurants, but only when I was dragged into it by meetings and large groups that met there. The three I went to serve the standard low-effort stuff like you find at Taco Bell – burritos, crunchy tacos, nachos. I saw creative ingredient substitutions, like tortilla chips with a bitter cheese powder on them for dipping in salsa (wtf), shredded cheese baked on instead of queso on nachos (not half bad) or kidney beans instead of black or pinto beans (*sigh*).
The real shock comes when your friends decide to make “chili sin carne” together. Picture this: There are no chilis. There are not even bell peppers, the nearest cheap cousin to the chili. No: there is exactly half a teaspoon of powdered paprika, and two cans each of tomatoes, KIDNEY beans, and CORN. That’s right. Motherfucking corn sin carne. Okay okay, but at least the seasoning is Mexican, right? If there aren’t chilis or even peppers, surely your friends just want to go for the traditional Mexican duo: cumin and oregano? Not a chance! It’s seasoned with salt, pepper, the half teaspoon of paprika, and CURRY. You heard me, curry. Then they ladle it out… OVER RICE. That’s right—your beloved German friends think chili con carne means a got-damn tomato-corn curry served over rice. Somehow the Germans must have bastardized the recipe so many times over the years to get it to this point where it is – and innocently still call it Tex-Mex. Your friends ask you if you like it, and it takes all the strength you can muster to hide your disappointment. In a moment of weakness, you will sneak into the kitchen claiming you want a „larger helping“ and frantically dig through their spice cabinet like a guilty raccoon. When you return, you will notice the pot was on the table the whole time. They know what you did.
I made the mistake of trying Mexican food in England, and it wasn’t good at all. That said, I had incredible Indian food there, and I have yet to find Indian food in the states that measures up. Based on my limited experience and casual observations, I’d say that Mexican food is to America as Indian food is to England.
There’s something to be said about geographical proximity.
Norway has a tradition to have taco friday every week. Most familys participate in this, so tacos are extremely popular here. Though we kinda have a Norwegian version of it!