WTOP is celebrating Hispanic Heritage Month from Sept. 15 to Oct. 15. Check out our previous coverage on events in the area, community leaders and calls to make Nationals coverage more accessible for Spanish speakers. All this month, discover stories from the diverse Latino communities in the D.C. region, here at WTOP.com and on air at WTOP-FM.
At 25 years old, David Peña was a young sous-chef in Northern Virginia, living out his dream and comfortable with his position. Once a week, as part of a family meal for employees, the Arlington native began making chicken tinga — a Mexican dish made with shredded chicken in a sauce made from tomatoes, chipotle chilies and onions.
The food became a favorite dish, causing someone to ask Peña when he planned to open “La Tingeria”: a play off the meal and “taqueria,” the Spanish word for a restaurant that specializes in tacos.
“Fast forward to me getting laid off, I was like ‘dude, that name.'” Peña said. “I just kept remembering that name. So I was like, ‘you know what, let’s open up La Tingeria.'”
Ten years later, Peña’s gamble paid off as La Tingeria is a full-fledged operation with a food truck focused on catering events, a brick-and-mortar restaurant in the City of Falls Church and multiple locations inside D.C.’s Audi Field.
Mixing its blend of authentic Mexican dishes with inclusive options, Peña told WTOP that he is ready to expand the business further, with a dream to go national.
“Our food is absolutely 100% street food,” he said. “This is stuff that you would buy it from different street vendors, and we just brought it all at once. … We’re not concerned about quantity, we’re concerned about quality.”
La Tingeria currently sits on S. Washington Street, sharing space with a tattoo parlor. However, for Peña, the small “hole in the wall” is reminiscent of taco spots in California. While Falls Church will remain its home base, the restaurant plans to expand its footprint next year with a second brick-and-mortar location in Southpoint Parkway in Spotsylvania County.
“A lot of people, family, friends, they’re like, ‘why are you opening in Spotsylvania,'” Peña said about La Tingeria’s second location. “It’s an hour, two hour drive. … I want to take over the East Coast, then I want to move to the West. If I’m scared to move an hour away, how am I going to move to New York to Philadelphia to Florida to all these other Muslim populations or just anywhere?”
Much of La Tingeria’s growth came after 2020 during the COVID-19 pandemic. After establishing a customer base of government employees in four locations around Northern Virginia, Peña, like many food truck owners, was forced to look for innovative ways to attract new clients after the pandemic forced many to work from home.
When figuring out his new menu, a close friend advised him to include halal options. He’s referring to a religious dietary restriction for Muslims that prohibits consuming pork, alcohol and any animal, “killed by means other than exsanguination,” according to Encyclopaedia Britannica.
While he is not Muslim himself, Peña said he saw the benefit of including another customer base while maintaining a small traditional Mexican menu. He began using halal meat prepared through proper Muslim practices, and the results were immediate, with lines of people standing outside of La Tingeria food truck for hours. Peña recalled those pandemic days fondly, stating the truck would stay open late fulfilling orders or run out of food in mere hours after opening.
“I don’t even know how I did it,” he said. “In my food truck I have a two-and-a-half foot griddle, and we’re kind of doing the same with tacos… I look back [and] I really don’t know how we were doing it. It was so crazy.”
The explosion of its halal options helped La Tingeria to grow so much, it made it necessary to open a brick-and-mortar location. Peña said his restaurant was the “forerunner” of halal food options in Virginia’s food industry, and believes that the little touches to the menu and its ingredients also make La Tingeria stand out compared to other Mexican establishments.
“We don’t freeze our food, we don’t buy anything processed,” he said “In order to do that and maintain that quality of ingredients, we have to limit our menu.”
La Tingeria’s current menu features traditional staples seen in various Mexican restaurants — including tacos, tostadas, tortas (sandwiches) and sopes (a tortilla-like masa cake with ingredients on top) — with options to help fit multiple dietary restrictions. The restaurant recently added two vegan options: a tostada with sautéed mushroom and a chilaquiles platter (cut and lightly fried corn tortilla chips dipped in a spicy sauce).
For first-timers, Peña recommends trying the restaurant’s signature dish, a tinga tostada, which includes your option of shredded chicken or brisket “braised for hours with caramelized onions with a chipotle garlic sauce” along with lettuce, crema and queso fresco on top of a flat-toasted tortilla.
“It’s still a little spicy, but then you kind of taste the sweetness in there as well,” he said. “That’s why I think our tinga is the best.”
Another popular dish is the quesabirria tacos with consommé: a beef taco folded into a tortilla with melted cheese served with a broth for dipping. For experienced Mexican food lovers, Peña recommends the chingona torta: a large sandwich with carne asada, chilaquiles and a sunny side up egg on top of telera bread.
“It’s a big sandwich so just know you will fall asleep if you eat that thing,” he joked.
Peña encourages anyone curious about La Tingeria to check out its reviews online and to give them a try. Its menu is small and affordable for anyone looking for a quick and inexpensive meal to-go.
“I feel like the reviews speak for themselves,” he said. “We’re Top 100 restaurants, we’re Top 25 best tacos; we’re Top 15 best casual dining. I think we know what we’re doing.”
EDITOR’S NOTE: This report has been updated to correctly identify the restaurant’s location in Falls Church, Virginia.
