Best Tacos in Charlottesville
Charlottesville, Virginia — updated August 21, 2026
Six places to eat tacos in Charlottesville, from the Long Street truck to the birria counter on JPA, with what to order at each.
Charlottesville's taco scene runs on two separate tracks that rarely meet. East of downtown, along Market, High and Long Streets, a cluster of family-run taquerias serves the city's Mexican community with $4 street tacos and menus that assume you know what alambres are. West, toward UVA and the IX Art Park, the tacos are Austin-influenced, served on flour tortillas, and sold alongside breakfast plates and beer. Both are worth your time. This guide covers six of them, and skips the national chains that keep turning up in other people's lists.
Taqueria El Comalito
The highest-rated taqueria in town and the one locals name first. It sits in a small storefront at 905 E Market Street, and the format is street-style: corn tortillas, meat, onion, cilantro, lime. Nothing arrives under a blanket of cheese unless you ask. It carries a 4.8 across 240 Google reviews, which is a remarkable number to hold at that volume.
Worth knowing before you drive over: they are closed Mondays, and they close at 8pm the rest of the week, which catches people out. Call ahead at (434) 227-1936 if you are cutting it close.
Taqueria El Chavo
Go here for birria. Tacos are $4 each, whether you take the asada or the birria, and the birria comes plainly dressed with onion and cilantro. The move is the Quesabirria at $17 for three, which arrives with cabbage, jalapeño and a cup of consomé for dipping. It is the most food you can get for the money on this list.
Open 11am to 9:30pm Monday through Wednesday and until 10pm Thursday through Saturday. Their ordering page lists the shop at 2211 Jefferson Park Avenue, so check which address you are heading to before you leave.
Tacos Gomez
A food truck parked at 1348 Long Street, and the only place on this list where the menu goes well past tacos into territory most Charlottesville kitchens do not touch. Alambres are $14, a pile of griddled steak, bacon, peppers and cheese you scoop into tortillas yourself. Gringas are $12, bistec arrachera $15, flautas $13, quesadillas $5.
Open 10am to 8:30pm Monday through Thursday, until 10pm Friday and 9pm Saturday. Closed Sundays, which is the single most common way to be disappointed by this truck.
La Michoacana Taqueria & Restaurant
The sit-down option in the East High corridor, at 1138 E High Street, and the one to pick when you want a table and a full plate rather than a handful of tacos eaten standing up. It holds a 4.5 across 631 reviews, the deepest review count of any independent taqueria in the city, which is the kind of number that only accumulates from repeat neighbourhood business.
Open 11am to 9pm Monday through Saturday.
Brazos Tacos
Brazos is the Austin end of the spectrum: flour tortillas, breakfast tacos served all day, and a room built for lingering. The original is in the IX Art Park at 925 2nd Street SE, and there is a second bar location at 1133 Emmet Street North closer to UVA. If you have been told Charlottesville has no good tacos, you were probably taken to Brazos and told it was Mexican food. It is not trying to be. Judged as Texas breakfast tacos, it is the best in the city.
It is also the busiest, with 1,094 reviews at a 4.4. Expect a queue at weekend brunch.
Asado Wing & Taco Company
A wing shop that also makes tacos, on West Main at number 1327, and the reason it is here rather than on a bar list is the hours. It runs to 10pm every night, noon to 10pm on Saturdays and Sundays, which makes it one of the few places in Charlottesville where you can eat a taco after the taquerias have shut. Go with the expectation of a bar kitchen rather than a taqueria and it delivers.
What we left off
Qdoba and Torchy's both appeared in the previous version of this guide. Both are national chains, neither needs the recommendation, and including them told you nothing you could not have worked out from a highway sign. If you want a burrito assembled on a line, you already know where to go.
The short version: El Comalito for street tacos, El Chavo for birria, Gomez for everything else on the menu, Brazos for breakfast. Most of these close by 9pm, so the practical constraint in this town is not quality, it is timing.