A Crazy-Delicious CDMX-Style Taqueria Opens in Bed-Stuy

By Scott Lynch

Peral is located at 105 Saratoga Avenue, between Decatur and Bainbridge Streets, and starting September 2 will be open during the day on Monday through Friday from 7 a.m. to 3 p.m. on weekdays, and 8 a.m. to 3 p.m. on weekends. Dinner service runs from Wednesday through Sunday from 5 p.m. to 10 p.m.     

Peral, a charming and lively bar and CDMX-style taqueria that opens this week on the eastern edge of Bed-Stuy, is definitely a family enterprise—two different couples and one pair of siblings have a hand in things here—but the backstory’s kind of tangled and complicated, so I’m not going to dive into all the names and details here. The salient facts, though, are these:  

1. Peral is from the teams behind Olmo, located literally next door on Saratoga Avenue, and Cicatriz, located in the Juarez neighborhood of Mexico City.
2. Drinking is encouraged, and there’s a full bar starring a variety of $15 cocktails (frozen and otherwise) and $12 micheladas.
3. The tacos—and there are seven of them currently on the menu, including several vegan or vegetarian options—are all amazing. Instantly among the best served anywhere in Brooklyn. 

“This is a true love letter to Mexico City,” Peral’s co-chef Filipe Neves, who lives in CDMX with co-chef Scarlett Lindeman (they are “partners in love and life”), tells BKMAG. “A lot of the tacos we are doing at Peral I would say are not tacos that you often find in NYC. We really want to focus on bringing to Brooklyn a taste of what eating in Mexico City is actually like when you live here.”

Photo by Scott Lynch

More specifically, Peral’s tacos are unfussily assembled; many involve guisados, or stews; there are a bunch of excellent salsas at the bar that you can (and should) dump all over everything; the chewy corn tortillas are rolled out in house using Sobre Masa masa; the softer, lardier flour tortillas come from Caramelo; and it’s all so good that you can’t wrong no matter what you order, so just roll with your cravings. Shout out to chef de cuisine Miguel Mendez, who runs the kitchen here and at Olmo on a nightly basis.

Birria de pancho taco ($8). Photo by Scott Lynch    

I loved the two meaty specials, one with a mound of punchy goat birria on a cheese-crusted tortilla, the other a seared slice of rib-eye draped over refried beans and topped with pickles. The crunchy chicken milanesa taco, co-starring a pile of potato sticks, also ruled, and the funky chorizo verde one really packed a punch.

Chicken milanesa taco ($6). Photo by Scott Lynch

Rib-eye taco ($8). Photo by Scott Lynch

Equally excellent were the plant-based options, like the braised wild greens taco available with or without salty cotija cheese, and the mushroom deshebrada littered with toasted pepitas. The sleeper hit, though? Peral’s dried chili ancho taco, a simple, tangy, cheesy, caramelized thing of beauty. 

Braised greens taco ($6). Photo by Scott Lynch

All three sides (potatoes, beans, roasted onion) make for welcome companions to as many of the above your party can handle, but if you can only fit one more thing on your table, get the onion, which is charred to hell and sitting in a puddle of black vinegary “venom,” about as intense and incredible as anything I’ve tasted this year.

Roasted onion with “venom,” papas cambray, frijoles de olla ($4 each). Photo by Scott Lynch

The desserts are special, too. The sweet quesadilla offers a fine excuse to eat a bunch of guava paste. The champola, which chef Lindeman describes as “like the Merida-style sundae made at Sorbeteria Colon, an ice cream shop that’s been in Mexico City since the 1920s,” is basically just cold flavored milk dumped over ice cream, and it’s unbelievably refreshing. 

Champola ($6). Photo by Scott Lynch

And then there’s the “pastel imposible,” which packs three of my personal favorite things to eat—dulce de leche, flan, and chocolate cake—into one delightful stack. “It’s really crazy,” Lindeman says. “I learned about it 15 years ago. You make a very simple chocolate cake; you make a very simple flan. You pour the cake in a pan. You pour the flan on top. And in the oven, they do some osmosis thing and separate. So when you flip the cake out, it’s become inverted. The flan moves through the cake while it’s cooking!”

Pastel imposible ($9). Photo by Scott Lynch

Neves chimes in: “It’s such a good way of representing Mexico City. This is such a beautiful place, but you have no idea how it fucking works. It’s impossible! But it happens, and it’s beautiful.”   

Lindeman’s brother Jake is in charge of the booze here and at Olmo, and the cocktail list is stacked with concoctions made with Oaxacan rum, tequila, and/or mezcal. At least one frozen drink is churned out every night. And there’s lots of seating both inside under the skylight, or outside under the actual sky. As Neves puts it, “We really want to push that Peral is a bar. Come and drink here.” Plus, it’s a cafe during the day, with coffee and pastries from Masa Madre in Sunnyside, and breakfast tacos coming soon. What a win for the neighborhood.