The opening of Taqueria con Salsa last year brought authentic Mexican flavours to the city. I went to the restaurant to find out more.

“I always said I'd open a restaurant one day,” says Fernando Gonzalez sitting on a bright red chair in Taqueria con Salsa. In the middle of the room, his team are getting ready for another busy evening, flipping tacos and slicing limes. The mood is upbeat.

Until 2025, life always seemed to get in the way of his dream; but this time an offer came at the right moment. “I've always been out and about in Munich,” he says, “but now I have a child, I didn’t want to party all the time or be constantly be on my phone.”

Fernando is a well-known figure in the city, known for his hugely successful food blog Auf die Faust, as well as different pop-up ventures and collaborations. His supportive community played a key role in making his latest project a success.

“Once we decided to go for it, it was all stations go,” he says. Together with his business partner Nik Petschko, they only had a few weeks to test recipes, find a team and wrap up loose ends elsewhere. They even managed to found a taquero.

Taqueria con Salsa is one half of the food market on the ground floor of the Gasteig in Haidhausen. They share the space with American comfort food joint Fairfax Express, known for their southern fried chicken and smashed burgers. “It feels like two food shacks working side by side, it’s a great synergy,” Fernando says.

“First and foremost, we’re a taqueria,” he explains, adding that after the first few months, people have started to fully understand their vision: “We're not a German restaurant serving tacos, we’re a fully Mexican restaurant in the heart of Munich.”

Standouts on the menu included the nopales with grilled cactus and onion, lengua with slow cooked beef, and the carnitas bavaras made with with crispy Schweinshaxe (Bavarian roasted pork).

“My family always wanted to add Mexican flavour to the food here,” he explains. “In 1998 or 1999, we discovered that local pork knuckle is very similar to carnitas, so if we had tortillas at home we would buy a knuckle from the chicken stand and work with that.” Other ingredients were harder to come by back then, such as chilies or avocados.

Family is everything to Fernando, his mum working with him in the restaurant. “We flew to Munich in the 90s and I said to her back then that if I ever did anything, it would be with her.”

Alongside the tacos, they have quesadillas and appetisers, as well as two sweet dishes. More recently, their new breakfast options, available from 10.30 to 13.30 on Saturday morning, include chilaquiles verdes with totopos (nachos made with nixtamalised corn), salsa verde, cheese, refried beans and pickled red onion.

“Ultimately, the salsa has to be spicy, the meat has to be fatty and the tortillas have to be just right,” he explains. They don’t make guacamole on a daily basis as they say they can't justify it environmentally.

“I had a feeling it would be cool here and that it would work, but I never thought it would be this amazing,” he smiles. They’ve been busy from day one. “Maybe we'll expand someday, but on the other hand we also have to stop and realise what we've achieved so far.”

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Address: Rosenheimer Str. 5, 81667 Munich
Website: https://www.taqueriaconsalsa.com/

Cactus tacos and spicy micheladas: Mexican food comes to Munich

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