• 25 tasty taco recipes to make at home

For the past few years, Sydney's new wave of Mexican cuisine has largely championed light, fresh ingredients and the kind of three-bite tacos that can be held in one hand while the other cradles cerveza.

Lately, however, there's a new tortilla trend in town: cheesy, hulking birria tacos designed to be dipped in soup and requiring multiple napkins.

Birria hails from the state of Jalisco, Mexico – also the home of tequila. Its recipes are many and varied, but the "quesabirria" popular in Australia usually features slow-cooked beef bolstered by lots of cheese in a crispy, fat-fried tortilla.

A cup of rust-coloured consomme made from the meat's cooking juices and marinade is served on the side for sipping and taco dunking. Perfect for winter; not so great for white clothes.

"For the original recipe, goat was cooked in a stock of dried chillies to create the delicious stew known as birria, then served with raw onion, spicy salsa and tortillas" says Rosa Cienfuegos, the Sydney-based author of tamale and taco-loaded cookbook Comida Mexicana.

"I'm from Mexico City and I used to eat it at the cantinas where you go to either have a few drinks and a good time, or to cure a hangover."

Like fruit-topped porridge and poffertjes pancakes, the filling snacks have become a global TikTok sensation over the past 12 months with "#birriatacos" videos racking up more than 470 million views on the social media platform.

Birria's viral popularity partly stems from the appeal of cheese-heavy dishes on the internet, generally, plus the fun, messy process of eating the tacos.

"It's theatrical, interactive food," says Ben Calabro, co-owner of Pyrmont eatery Quick Brown Fox. "You also have tender meat contrasting with a crisp tortilla to create the kind of thing people crave."

The current COVID-19 lockdown spurred Calabro to launch Buen Taco this weekend – a takeaway and delivery pop-up slinging slow-cooked wagyu birria marinated in chipotle, pasilla and arbol chillies.

"My head chef Regan [Bagshaw] has been researching and developing taco recipes like mad," says Calabro.

"Like the birria trucks in America, we dip the tortilla in fat skimmed off the meat's cooking stew before it hits the grill. This helps the taco crisp up nicely while adding loads of flavour."

For Sydney's most traditional birria, Cienfuegos offers a benchmark beef stew with Oaxaca cheese, salsa and tortillas as an occasional special through her Dulwich Hill tamaleria and Redfern restaurant and deli.

Meanwhile, four birra-focused eateries have opened across Sydney in the past seven months: Loco Birria in Melrose Park, Taco Street in Beverly Hills, and Chololo with outposts in Fairfield and Hurlstone Park.

Chololo was born when Julia Nguyen and her partner David Tran began cooking birria for friends at home last year.

"We were seeing heaps of social media posts about birria from people in the US, and when we couldn't find the tacos in Sydney, we decided to make them ourselves," says Nguyen, whose background is technology risk management for a major bank.

"Our friends and family started tagging our birria on social media, and their followers were soon asking where to get the tacos.

"That led us to start taking online orders from the public in November, and we would sell out within five minutes every weekend. We were cooking on four barbecues at home. It was insane."

The overseas popularity of birria on TikTok also led Annabelle Luu and her partner to open Taco Street in May.

"The tacos were all over Instagram and Facebook too," says Luu. "There aren't a lot of Mexican restaurants around [Beverly Hills] either, so it was a good opportunity to seize the moment. It didn't take long for people to start visiting us from suburbs more than an hour away though."

The next frontier is birria ramen – that is, pouring the coppery side broth over Japanese noodles. The mash-up is hugely popular in the US, and Chololo has dipped its toes in the spicy dish too.

"We recommend the ramen pack where you can dip your birria taco in the soup then take a slurp of noodles," says Nguyen. "It's a crazy combination, but it works."