For the co-owners of Taqueria Los Puñales, there’s a lot in the name. For starters: It’s not a restaurant, says owner David Madrigal. It’s a taqueria.
“When you go to Mexico, to a taqueria off the street, they have tacos only,” says Madrigal, who grew up working at his family’s place, Taqueria Los Rojos, in Guadalajara. “They don’t offer you chilaquiles, or enchiladas, or tortas, or burritos. It’s a specialty: tacos.”
That was the focus when Madrigal and his partner Brian Aster opened Los Puñales in June of 2020: Serving up a prolific 25-taco lineup of savory braised meats and expertly seasoned veggies, all on fresh-to-order tortillas.
“It was like, no, we’re not doing another taqueria that does everything,” says Aster. “If you do everything, you stand for nothing.”
“Nobody else [in Portland] has 25 tacos on their menu,” adds Madrigal.
And then there’s the other part of the name: Puñales, an anti-gay slur that doesn’t translate directly to English but is similar to faggot in meaning and context. Madrigal remembers his family back in Mexico questioning whether that name was wise before opening.
“Now we’ve been here for five years,” he says, “everything is great, we still have a great clientele.… It’s about not losing your essence as a person, or as a business.”
If you don’t speak Spanish, you’ll still know Los Puñales is a queer spot as soon as you walk in: Gay art and cheeky memorabilia fills the walls (including portraits of Mariah Carey, the Virgin of Guadalupe, and Tonya Harding), and house music pumps through the speakers. It isn’t unheard of for one of the drag queens on staff to work a weekend drag brunch, come work their 2-9 pm shift at Los Punales in full drag, then head out to another drag gig at a bar.
“If a hardworking drag queen who speaks Spanish needs a job, we will figure it out!” says Aster.
But if you’re initially drawn in by those fun queer vibes, the food is what will make you a regular. Each guisado-style braised meat, from carnitas to lengua, tastes like it’s been roasting since 7 am—because it has. The lone seafood option, a perfectly spiced shrimp taco, nails both texture and taste, and the vegetarian and vegan tacos range from popular soy curl fare to options like the calabazitas, a celebration of zucchini that somehow avoids soggy territory. Ladle any of those into a freshly-made tortilla, and you’ve got a handheld treasure to enjoy.
“We put a lot of love and effort into what we do,” says Madrigal. “Everything we do is extra. Extra everything.”
It took a lot of that love and effort to open a taqueria in June 2020, just months into the COVID-19 pandemic. Madrigal and Aster were old friends, having met over 20 years ago at Porky’s, a bar located where the Eagle now stands, at a queer night called Booty. But working together brought up tensions.
“There were times I thought we were going to close the business and split up,” says Aster. “And when you’re opening in a pandemic, that adds more heat under the pot.”
But despite the odds, the taqueria flourished—and so did a romantic love between Madrigal and Aster. They weren’t dating when they opened Los Puñales, but are now an item. Madrigal calls Aster “a good partner in life and in business.”
Two years into running Los Puñales, the pair did make a couple small concessions to the “tacos only” rule. The taqueria now hosts a weekend brunch, offering up both red and green chilaquiles and pozole. If you’re getting pozole, be sure to make it a “tamazole” by adding a whole tamale in the soup.
“I was high,” Madrigal says to start his tamazole creation story. “I went to the Mexican store to buy tamales, so I had a bunch of tamales.” He came into the taqueria and added a red pork tamale to a bowl of red pork pozole. When non-stoned employees agreed it was delicious, he said: “I was like, Wow!, and we put it on the menu.” A simple search told Madrigal he wasn’t the first person in the world to think of this creation, but he was the first to put it on a menu in Portland.
The verde chicken tamazole comes with a chicken tamale that’s got a two-to-one meat and masa ratio. The corn masa sings with the corn hominy, and the tamale’s chicken joins the big chunks of stewed chicken, creating a bowl of layered comfort food that’s cut perfectly by the acidic green base.
Taqueria Los Puñales celebrated its five-year anniversary on June 22, and the owners anticipate being busy throughout Pride season, as they are every summer. The pair are aware of the political implications of being a proudly queer and Mexican establishment of 2025, and they made it a point to give out “Know Your Rights” guides to their entire staff. But they say they choose to make the taqueria a place for joy, and try not to let the current political realities take up more space than they need to.
“Be informed, know your rights, be prepared—but be joyful,” Aster says. “You gotta have some fun when the tyrants are doing their thing. Joy is the best revenge.”
And at Taqueria Los Puñales, joy is served on a house-made tortilla.
Taqueria Los Puñales, 3312 SE Belmont, lospunales.com
