Charly's Vegan Tacos Opens Its First U.S. Location in Wynwood

Get ready to make your vegan taco dreams come true. Charly's Vegan Tacos, a plant-based taco spot that started in Tulum, Mexico, is opening its first U.S. location in Wynwood.

The chain serves an array of vegan taco options, starters, and salads. The menu includes taco fillings such as cracklings, pastor-style mushrooms, rajas poblanas, and "soyrizo" and cheese. Also expect a kale salad, a Cobb salad, and starters such as fried plantains, "guaca-mango," Charly's aguachile, nachos machos, and grilled corn.

The opening is scheduled for this summer.

Founder Charly Garcia chose Wynwood as his first U.S. location because of its lively scene. "Wynwood is an up-and-coming neighborhood, which we love because it means it’s getting attention and popularity, but it’s still real, so it’s the perfect timing. It’s very colorful, and we love the fact that there’s a lot of artistic expression, graffiti, craft beer, many things like that. It also goes very good with our identity, because even us in the team, we are a very colorful mixture, I would say. So it’s just perfect for Charly’s."

Garcia says his restaurant's vegan tacos have the taste and texture of traditional Mexican favorites but with the bonus of being plant-based. "We reach into those childhood memories through taste and flavor because the majority of people ate meat when they were kids and eat meat now, and our food brings back nostalgia like your grandmother’s cooking with all these textures and flavors of meat replicated with plant-based ingredients."

Garcia thinks the concept will fit perfectly into Miami's food scene. "There are a lot of well-defined concepts, and I saw a couple of taco places but not like 100 percent focused on traditional Mexican food, so that’s our spot. We're there for people who are vegan, nonvegan, it doesn’t matter — it’s just very good-tasting Mexican food. So I think we are going to bring our own thing to Miami for sure."

Charly's Vegan Tacos. 172 NW 24th St., Miami; charlysvegantacos.com. Opening summer 2018.