La Tingeria at Port City Brewing Company. 3950 Wheeler Ave., Alexandria.
Chef David Andres Peña has long resisted adding alcohol to the menu of his hit taqueria, La Tingeria. As he explains it, he wanted to be known for his food, not a margarita special. And he’s been successful at that, ranking among Washingtonian‘s 100 Very Best Restaurants the last two years. At his next location—following Falls Church, Audi Field, and Spotsylvania.—Peña will still focus solely on his hit Mexican cooking, but now you can at least enjoy it with a beer. That’s because the taqueria is opening inside Alexandria’s Port City Brewing Company later this fall.
La Tingeria will operate from a 25-foot trailer on the brewery’s patio, though its fridges and prep stations will be housed inside the facility. For Port City, the in-house taqueria provides more consistency than a rotating lineup of food trucks. La Tingeria will continue serving its signature chipotle-and-tomato-stewed chicken tinga as well as its popular birria beef and goat tacos. Also coming to the menu: shrimp tacos with a chipotle aioli and mango pico de gallo as well as fried fish tacos with a sour cream/lime sauce, purple cabbage, and sweet chili peppers. Peña is thinking about offering torta sliders and birria egg rolls as well.
At the same time, Peña wants cater to the regulars who liked the variety of Port City’s food truck rotation by offering an expanded menu. He’s planning to introduce Sonoran hot dogs wrapped in beef bacon with pico de gallo, ketchup, and mustard. (La Tingeria is completely Halal.) He’s also looking to introduce lamb burgers with rotating toppings like feta, balsamic reduction, and pickled onions or a chipotle aioli.
While Port City will handle all the drinks, Peña says he’s had some preliminary talks with the brewery team about collaborating on a chipotle IPA. “We use a lot of chipotle. That’s the main ingredient for our tostada de tinga. I would really love it if somebody could come and get a tostada, drink that beer, just be like, ‘Wow, I love the resemblance,'” he says.
Peña worked in construction before getting into the food industry as a line cook at Rustico in Alexandria, eventually working up to sous chef. During family meals, he’d often cook tinga tostadas with stewed chicken, and one of his fellow cooks would joke, “When are you going to open up La Tingeria?” When he was laid off a year later, the name stuck with him. He opened La Tingeria food truck, and eight years later, in 2021, he turned it into a taqueria in Falls Church. La Tingeria was the first Halal taqueria in the region, which Peña says brought in an influx of Muslim customers who helped him regularly sell out.
Earlier this year, Peña expanded to a larger location in Spotsylvania, south of Fredericksburg. Peña says he’d initially been looking to buy property to live out there when he came across the restaurant space and fell in love with it. Meanwhile, the Port City location is set to open in late October or early November. Peña is eyeing Maryland or Woodbridge, next. And, who knows, maybe even someday… Japan, where his brother was recently stationed for the military.
“I do a lot of vision boards,” Peña says. “I’m a big believer in just putting the energy out there and just seeing what happens.”
Jessica Sidman covers the people and trends behind D.C.’s food and drink scene. Before joining Washingtonian in July 2016, she was Food Editor and Young & Hungry columnist at Washington City Paper. She is a Colorado native and University of Pennsylvania grad.
