Named for the Japanese word for “octopus”, “tako” opened in
April 2015. The owners also operate next-door-neighbor Butcher and the Rye, Meat
and Potatoes, Poutine House (at the Consol Energy Center – now called the PPG
Paints Arena), and the yet-unopened Pork and Beans. tako is located in downtown
Pittsburgh’s Cultural District on Sixth Street, across from Heinz Hall.
The first thing patrons notice about tako is it “movie
theatre” marquis (a yellow board surrounded by lights that advertises tacos,
poke, cold beer, air conditioning, tequila, etc.) above the open kitchen
counter window. tako offers outdoor sidewalk dining, but the best seats in the
house are the five bar stools mounted beneath the open sidewalk window/counter
(which give the feeling of a food truck), allowing diners to become a part of
the open kitchen. On the dining room side, the kitchen contains a glass wall so
diners can glimpse the chefs at work. The music/noise level is loud, and the
lighting is low. Inside by the entrance, colorful children’s alphabet magnets
spell out the day's tacos choices on a metal wall. The quirky décor includes chandeliers
made from repurposed bike chains, faux boxwood wallpaper on the upstairs
balcony, a large painting of the Last Supper, religious candles on each table, and
in an homage to the restaurant’s name, octopus tentacle sconces and a mural of
an octopus with a pinup girl in its grip decorate one wall. The bar crowd was crowded
on the night that we dined; because the restaurant space is long and narrow,
both the bar patrons and passing servers bumped us repeatedly. (A long row of
high-top tables features one side that shares a raised banquette, and the other
side of which uses backless metal barstools.)
Tako serves dressed-up Mexican street food, but its menu
references Asia, Latin America, Hawaii, and Korea. When the restaurant first
opened, the menu was larger and included non-taco options, but the chefs paired
it down to feature mainly tacos and sharable appetizers. Among the choices of
starters, the delicious but messy street corn offers three small cobs coated
with mayonnaise, chili, lime, and Mexican cheese. The build-your-own guacamole is
also popular; you can include ingredients such as shishito peppers, cotija
cheese, pineapple, bacon, chorizo, tuna, crabmeat, pork belly, duck, dill, pumpkin
seeds; accompanying chips are homemade and served in a high, long, narrow box.
The taco menu is protein-centric, including chorizo, pork, beef, al pastor, duck
confit, beer-battered fish, octopus; tacos come two to an order served on
custom-made wooden boards. Kitchen staff makes the tortilla shells in-house
minutes before delivery to your table. Drink option include over 20 margaritas (some
frozen), cocktails, beer, sangria, wine, and sake. Tako offers 300+ kinds of
tequila, 100 varieties of mezcal, and 100 types of rum.
We ordered the Thai coconut margarita, which was the only disappointing
menu item that we sampled. It tasted like a regular margarita, without any
coconut flavor at all; in fact, if not for the edible orchid perched atop the
mostly ice cube-filled glass, we would not have believed it to be anything but
a standard margarita. However, the street corn app was tasty and unique, and we
liked our Korean, al pastor (pork and pineapple), and duck confit tacos (the
latter was fattier than we generally like). For dessert, we shared the coconut
tapioca, which featured tropical diced fruit (kiwi, mango, and papaya) set atop
creamy coconut tapioca pudding.
We enjoyed our dinner at tako; next time, we want to sit outside at the
chef’s counter.
