The app
How it works
Small data, powerful viz
Filters and search to find what you want
Build custom taco-trails to maximize deliciousness
Tucson, AZ
No algorithms. No sponsored results.
Just the spots worth knowing.
The problem
You've been there. You search for tacos, you get a list of the same five places with 4.2 stars and 800 reviews. Half of them are chains. The other half are fine. None of them are what you were looking for.
The problem isn't that there's not enough information. It's that the wisdom of the masses isn't actually wise — it's just loud.
The idea
CartoTaco is built on a different idea: that one person who really knows a place is worth more than a thousand people who kinda liked it.
Every restaurant in here was chosen deliberately. You won't find everything — you'll find the right things. Spots that have been operating the same way for decades. Family places that don't have a website. Trucks that move. The taco that someone's abuela has been making since before you were born.
This is a small
list, on purpose.
The app
Small data, powerful viz
Filters and search to find what you want
Build custom taco-trails to maximize deliciousness
The list
A family-run kitchen bringing real southern Mexican flavors to the Westside. The mole sauce comes straight from Puebla — made by their mother and shipped to Tucson. Get the huaraches.
A south-side food truck institution since 2008. Maria Elena Domínguez's goat birria has earned a devoted following — quesabirria, Sonoran hot dogs, and homemade tortillas on W. Irvington.
No frills, no menu on the wall, just carne asada and costilla tacos done exactly right. The kind of place you drive past three times before you find it. Worth every wrong turn.
The person
I've lived in Tucson long enough to know that the best food here doesn't show up on the first page of a search engine. It's in the places that don't have a marketing budget, that have never asked anyone for a review, that have been serving the same recipes for generations.
I built CartoTaco because I'm a data nerd and wanted a guide I could hand to a friend — one that skips the noise and goes straight to the places that matter. No stars, no rankings, no algorithm deciding what you should eat. Just a short list of spots I'd stake my reputation on.
This is a one-person project, and that's the point. Curation means someone is making choices. I'd rather give you ten great recommendations than a thousand mediocre ones.