A chef shares 5 red flags to look for when dining at a Mexican restaurant

4 hours ago 1

Three small tacos topped with pickled red onions, cilantro, avocado, and lime slices on a wooden tray.

Updated 2025-10-20T15:53:43Z

The celebrity chef Pati Jinich knows how to spot a good — and bad — Mexican restaurant.
Cold salsa and premade guacamole are both bad signs, she said.
Jinich said many places are trying to do birria, but most of them aren't authentic.

Pati Jinich, the chef known for programs including PBS's "La Frontera" and "Pati's Mexican Table," has dined at countless Mexican and Mexican-inspired restaurants.

Though she's had good meals at spots across the US, she said she can sense when an establishment isn't doing her home country's cuisine justice.

Here are the five red flags she looks out for at Mexican restaurants.

Cold salsa isn't a good sign.

Small ceramic bowls with red and green salsas, pico de gallo, and chips on a table at a Mexican restaurant.

Salsa is a staple at any Mexican place, but Jinich told Business Insider that she's skeptical when it's served cold.

"Mexican salsas are best when they're freshly made and when they're either hot or lukewarm but not cold," she said.

Even if the salsa is made in big batches ahead of time, which is common, the chef said it's best to either bring it to room temperature by taking it out of the fridge or warm it up by simmering it on the stove.

"The cold temperature makes salsas less flavorful," Jinich said. "When they are lukewarm or warm, their flavors are unlocked."

Tortilla chips shouldn't be thin and brittle.

A bowl of tortilla chips on a table at a Mexican restaurant.

Though Jinich chef said serving a basket of chips before the meal is primarily an American invention, it's now common in restaurants across the US and Mexico.

But not all tortilla chips are created equally.

"On the Mexican side of the border, the topos, or tortilla chips, tend to be made at the restaurant and with fresh corn tortillas, and they're thicker, too," she said.

She's not a fan of the thin, easily cracked chips found in many Mexican restaurants in the US.

Premade guacamole is a big no.

Hands of two diners sharing a bowl of guacamole at a Mexican restaurant.

If there's one thing Jinich can't stand, it's low-quality, premade guac.

"Premade guacamole is a disgrace," she said. "It just doesn't taste at all like the guacamole that I know and that I love and that's so easy to make."

In Jinich's eyes, a good restaurant should always make fresh guacamole, ideally tableside, if it's on the menu.