Last year “XO Taco” was just another menu item at Modern Malt. Now, it’s been concepted into Syracuse’s newest restaurant.

XO Taco serves Mexican-American cuisine with an array of specialty tacos. Its signature neon sign lights up the patterned walls and a fully-stocked bar. On Sept. 4, it opened its doors on East Fayette Street.

Chris Bily, owner of Modern Malt, Original Grain and XO Taco, heard of an open space on the outskirts of downtown Syracuse six months ago. With an Asian-inspired menu originally in mind, Bily decided to pivot when he said he realized the area was missing a taco place.

“We were like ‘alright, well, I got this cool name and this cool brand that I can put together and let’s just roll with it and see what happens,’” Bily said.

The restaurant’s name came to him when he remembered a dish he had originally put on the Modern Malt menu. Bily said the name stuck with him and he knew it was a perfect fit.

XO Taco’s menu includes a range of different tacos such as the “Hot Chix” with roasted chicken, onion and cilantro, and the “Chimi-Chimi-Cauli” taco which consists of roasted curried cauliflower and cilantro-chimichurri.

The menu also has nachos and various sides like roasted corn and seasoned rice. Dishes like “El Cumino Chicken,” a cumin-dusted chicken with cilantro and lime, and the “Chill-Ada,” a black bean and rice enchilada, are both dishes patrons can get without a taco shell.

Bily directs line-cook staff for upcoming orders. Hieu Nguyen | Asst. Photo Editor

After being open for nearly a month, the owner said the Shrimp taco and “Macho Fries” are their most popular items.

“(The menu is) a fun, funky mixture between classic, authentic Mexican and sort of our version of playing with Mexican,” Bily said.

Bily said he believes what sets XO Taco apart from other similar places in the area is that they make their own taco shells. When talking to his friends at Apizza Regionale in Syracuse, they mentioned their cuisine started with the dough. Bily thought of how this would parallel in Mexican food and realized it all started with the shell.

They begin by using their own batter made of corn flour, salt and water. The dough is pressed with a cast-iron taco press to flatten it and then grilled on each side for one minute. To make their chips, they fry the shells.

XO Taco makes its own taco shells and chips from scratch with corn flour, salt and water. Hieu Nguyen | Asst. Photo Editor

The menu options are not the only modern element in XO Taco, though. The décor and atmosphere of the restaurant are meant to be social media-friendly. The biggest wall in the restaurant has “XO” and “Taco” written all over it, another wall near the bar has fake grass with neon lips and a long table in the back has a vine-like chandelier with fake teeth hanging from it.

Nearly every aspect of the restaurant, even the interior design, was planned by Bily. He said one of his favorite parts of opening up a restaurant is the layout and decorating.

He said he loves running a restaurant because of “how multifaceted it is,” and “there’s never a dull moment.”

“One point in time I’m working on business and financials, but then the next minute I’m working on a new playlist for the restaurant, to menu writing, which I love doing, to getting in the kitchen testing out new menu items, which is super fun,” he said.

After opening three restaurants, Bily said he knows what to look for when starting one and what things people in the community are looking for.

“I love how just three dimensional it is and not very black and white. There’s a lot of things that make this whole thing really f*cking cool for me,” he said.

Published on September 25, 2018 at 6:18 am

Contact Sarah: srslavin@syr.edu