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Chef Joe Valero consumed more than 200 tacos during his last trip to Mexico. The vast load-bearing possibilities of tortillas inspired him as he travelled thousands of kilometres.

His home town of Guadalajara was the heart of his itinerary, but he also made taco-filling stopovers in Mexico City (Taqueria Orinoco was a highlight) and Oaxaca (“It’s the cradle of all Mexican cuisine,” the chef says).

He watched staff chop ingredients, warm tortillas and give out orders at street stalls. He tried pork stomach (“buche”) and brain, and was amazed by the limitless variations of protein and salsa in a tortilla.

This taco-eating marathon wasn’t initially the plan when the chef booked tickets to Mexico in March: his main purpose was to introduce his partner to his family in Guadalajara. But just before jetting off, he agreed to become head chef (“The only chef”) at Tacos Tacos Tacos in Potts Point, and repurposing his six-week holiday into a research mission seemed logical.

“All these places that I’d been to in Mexico, they didn’t really have more [space] than what I have.”

Joe Valero

On the road, he sent many pictures back to his new bosses, co-owners Phil Stenvall and Greg Bampton, who run French wine bar Caravin just blocks from Tacos Tacos Tacos.

The trio originally met years ago, when they worked close by in Surry Hills: Valero was at Nikkei, a Peruvian-Japanese restaurant, and Stenvall and Bampton ran Bar Suze.

They opened Tacos Tacos Tacos in June and the laneway eatery’s tiny size is part of its charm. The decor comes from artisan markets and craft shops Valero visited in Tlaquepaque (close to his birthplace in Guadalajara, in the country’s west) and Oaxaca, in the south of Mexico.

Nearly everything, including the salsa station, cutlery stand and most tables, is pushed outdoors and when you squeeze inside to order, you’ll see Valero flipping tortillas at the grill and prepping ingredients.

“All these places that I’d been to in Mexico, they didn’t really have more than what I have,” he says.

Yes, it can be limiting: he can’t do barbacoa traditionally (where meat is wrapped in maguey leaves and left to smoulder in an underground oven) because, well, he doesn’t have a hole in the floor to burn.

Instead, he slow-cooks beef brisket and cheeks for eight hours, until the meat softens into intensely rich threads, and serves his barbacoa taco with salsa taquera, a smoky hot sauce fired by sun-dried chipotles, arbol chilli and charred bullhorn peppers.

Initially, Valero thought diners wouldn’t enjoy traditional spice levels, but after seeing how Australians embrace Thai food and other cuisines with a significant capsaicin-powered blast radius, he no longer tones things down.

There’s more to chilli than explosive heat, though: it can have milder and more nuanced notes, like in the pork chilorio taco, which originates from Sinaloa. Here, Valero has charred meat with marinated onions and five types of Mexican chillies and let the pork cook in its lard until lavishly buttery. Jumbled cucumbers and pepitas add cool and crunch.

His chicken tinga taco is done Yucatan style, and presented with avocado, lime-pickled onion and Mexican oregano.

The menu has shifted over time: the halloumi quesadilla is now bolstered with Vannella’s Oaxacan-style cheese, sweetcorn and a bright load of pico de gallo (tomato, onion and coriander). The accompanying salsa macha initially hummed and soared with a six-chilli harmony. Valero has since dropped the sweeter ancho tones, but there’s still the caramelly blitz of sesame seeds and roasted peanuts.

As Valero flips the quesadilla on both sides, he allows the melting cheeses to stiffen into lacey brown edges. There’s an official name for this in Mexican cooking (“costra”) and the crisp blooms are satisfying to shatter and crunch.

The menu also includes guacamole with a personal history: “Literally the recipe I’ve been doing since my first job in hospitality,” he says.

From age 12 at the Riu Plaza Guadalajara, Valero has prepared for this throughout his career (which includes time at Alcade, which is on Latin America’s 50 Best Restaurants list).

The recipe is simple (essentially jalapeno, onion, coriander, lime, salt and avocado) and dates back decades, to his grandmother.

Her influence is also in the agua frescas, where Valero blends watermelon, hibiscus and other available ingredients into refreshing drinks.

The horchata panna cotta with strawberries and coconut is his twist on the spiced rice milk popular throughout Mexico: it affirms that there’s more to Tacos Tacos Tacos than good things offered in tortillas.