On a quaint street next to the Massachusetts State House and the Boston Commons, guests streamed into a small restaurant nestled into the side of a building with a blue awning, sporting the name Taco Azul.
Taco Azul, a Mexican restaurant in Beacon Hill, hosted its “VIP Launch Party” on Oct. 12 for community members to visit the restaurant and try the food. The restaurant opened to the public Thursday, Oct. 17.
The event offered tacos for guests to try, a make-your-own tortilla station and an ice sculpture employees poured margaritas down.
Taco Azul is the brainchild of Dan Leyva, who worked for several restaurant companies in New York before deciding to found his own Mexican restaurant in Boston.
“Taco Azul really was always something that was in the back of my mind as something I wanted to do, and the biggest reason for it was because I found a gap in what was being offered,” he said.
Levya wanted to create a more focused menu that’s smaller and has fewer options than at a traditional Mexican restaurant.
“You’d have these 10-page menus at these big-box Mexican restaurants … and you don’t really ever know what they’re really good at,” he said. “It’s hard to be really good at a lot of things. Usually it’s kind of impossible.”
Taco Azul focuses on guacamole, tacos and margaritas — “the core staples,” Levya said. The restaurant only serves one brand of tequila and solely blue corn chips and tortillas.
“My whole philosophy has always been, you can only be good at a few things, so focus on a few things and do those better than anyone else,” he said.
Leyva said he wanted the launch party to showcase his restaurant’s unique style and open the restaurant to the community.
Many visitors at the event appreciated how the party showcased everything the restaurant has to offer to its guests.
“I think it’s a great way to introduce [Taco Azul] to the community and expose people to what they’re gonna bring and help enhance Boston a little bit more,” Chaz Glick, an attendee, said.
The event offered different stations for guests to try out, and Glick said he appreciated how this made it interactive instead of just “come-and-go.”
“You learn about a mezcal, you learn about how to make a tortilla and then you can actually eat that tortilla that you make,” he said.
Andy Lai, another attendee, said he liked the variety of the event, which offered mocktails.
“That was considerate of them to have non-alcoholic options,” he said. “They have some good tacos they’re passing around.”
Joseph Spinale, a community member at the event, said he enjoyed the restaurant’s atmosphere and is excited for the addition of a “formal restaurant” to Beacon Hill.
“I feel like they needed a Mexican spot around here,” he said. “We need more of a restaurant vibe.”
With Taco Azul, Leyva said he was looking for a way to give back to the community. Creating a restaurant that was in demand in Beacon Hill and would attract people nearby was a way he saw to do that.
“If you look at the Beacon Hill community … there is not another Mexican restaurant, and none of the Mexican restaurants serve alcohol in all of Beacon Hill, and so the reception has been absolutely incredible,” he said.
The love of community and desire to give back appears in the food itself.
Levya said one rotating menu option is “The Smiling Taco,” and 10% of the profit from that menu item will go to Boston Children’s Hospital.
“We are making that a priority [and] making sure that we have paid attention to the requests of our community,” Levya said.
Leyva’s vision is not only to continue the development of Taco Azul, but also to expand it to new locations.
“New England as a whole is really craving this type of experience, this type of cuisine,” Levya said. “If we can do those right every single time and be the best that people have ever had, then we have a winning formula there.”
