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Swell Taco
Swell Taco opened in Babylon Village in 2012, started by siblings Steve and Brooke Jankow, who both grew up in California eating what they've described simply as really good Mexican food — and then spent years on Long Island missing it. Rather than settling for a compromise version of the West Coast tacos and burritos they'd grown up on, the Jankows built their own restaurant around that specific California-Mexican style, importing a genuinely different regional sensibility to Long Island's taco scene. That California through-line shows up in more than just the menu — Swell Taco's whole identity leans into a beachy, surfer-inflected atmosphere that stands out in a Babylon Village dining scene otherwise dominated by more traditional Italian and American spots. It's a vibrant, casual room built for the kind of easy, unfussy meal the Jankows grew up with, rather than a formal sit-down Mexican restaurant experience. The menu centers on marinated steak tacos, fried mahi-mahi fish tacos, and beer-battered shrimp tacos alongside quesadillas, burritos, and sides — a lineup that leans closer to Baja and Southern California taco traditions than to the more corn-tortilla-forward, interior-Mexican style found at some of the Island's other taco spots. Free chips and green salsa on arrival is a small but telling touch, the kind of casual hospitality gesture that's standard at California taquerias and less common at more formal East Coast Mexican restaurants. Swell Taco's self-description as Long Island's best taco and burrito bar is obviously a marketing line, but it reflects real staying power — the restaurant has operated continuously in the same Deer Park Avenue storefront for well over a decade, building a following specifically among Long Islanders looking for the fish-taco, fried-and-battered California style rather than a more traditional street-taco format. That specific regional identity — Cali surf culture transplanted wholesale to a Babylon storefront — is something few other Long Island taco spots have attempted with the same consistency. Siblings running a restaurant together long-term is itself a meaningful structural detail — Steve and Brooke Jankow have kept ownership and daily decision-making within the same two-person partnership since 2012 rather than bringing in outside investors to accelerate growth, which has kept Swell Taco's menu anchored to the specific California dishes they grew up on rather than drifting toward a more generic, broadly appealing Mexican-restaurant format as it might have under different ownership pressures. For a Long Island taco list, Swell Taco is the essential "California taco culture, transplanted whole" entry — fried mahi-mahi and beer-battered shrimp tacos served in a beachy, surfer-vibe Babylon Village room, built by California-raised siblings who opened the restaurant specifically because they couldn't find that style of Mexican food anywhere else on Long Island.
VS
Little Mexico
Little Mexico has served Westbury from its Post Avenue storefront since 2007, built by a chef-owner who spent years working in Mexican kitchens — including a stint at a restaurant called Don Juan — before opening a place of his own. The restaurant leans specifically on fresh, hand-made corn tortillas rather than a flour-based, more Americanized approach, positioning itself as one of Nassau County's more consistently authentic Mexican kitchens rather than a Tex-Mex-leaning crowd-pleaser. Newsday critic Joan Reminick singled out Little Mexico in an April 2014 feature specifically ranking the best tacos on Long Island, describing it plainly as "an authentic Mexican eatery" — a distinction Reminick didn't hand out loosely across every Mexican restaurant she covered. The piece specifically called out the restaurant's tacos de lengua, soft corn tortillas piled with tender cubes of beef tongue, as a standout order — a dish that requires real technique and a customer base willing to order beyond the safer chicken-and-steak options most casual taco spots lean on. That commitment to traditional, less mainstream cuts and preparations runs through the rest of the menu, too: tacos arrive dressed simply, with chopped tomato, onion, cilantro, radish, and lime rather than the shredded cheese and sour cream toppings more common at Americanized taco counters. It's a format built to let the filling and the fresh tortilla carry the dish, rather than burying either under heavy toppings — the kind of restraint that tends to signal a kitchen cooking for people who already know what they're ordering rather than trying to make an unfamiliar cuisine feel safer for first-timers. Having operated continuously from the same Westbury address for nearly two decades, through a period when Long Island's Mexican food scene has grown considerably more crowded with both authentic and Tex-Mex-leaning competitors, is itself a meaningful signal — Little Mexico built its reputation before much of that competition existed and has kept its core identity intact rather than chasing trends that came later. Regulars who've been ordering the same tacos de lengua since the Newsday feature ran over a decade ago are effectively voting with a decade-plus of repeat business. For a Long Island taco list, Little Mexico is the essential "authentic, unshowy corn-tortilla taqueria" entry — hand-made tortillas, a genuine tacos de lengua, and nearly two decades in the same Westbury storefront, built by a chef who spent years in other people's Mexican kitchens before opening his own.
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