Interview by Olivia Williams. Photography by Andy Nowell.
Not every restaurant exists to follow a trend. La Popular Taqueria, tucked into a colourful corner of St Vincent Street in Port Adelaide, exists to correct a misconception, built on the conviction that most Australians have simply never tasted real Mexican food, and that this is a situation worth fixing.
Behind it is Daniella Guevara Muñoz, a Mexico City-born marine biologist turned chef, whose path to running one of Australia’s most acclaimed taquerias reads like something you couldn’t quite pitch to a producer. She and her husband Kor-jent van Dijk arrived in Adelaide in 2012, having spent years working on the Great Barrier Reef. Food, at that point, was a passion rather than a vocation. Then came the underground dinners.
“The real turning point came when I decided to host my first underground dinners,” Daniella recalls. “That was the moment I allowed myself to imagine a different future, to see that cooking could be more than a passion, that it could become my life’s work. Something clicked when I was sharing my food, my stories, and a piece of my culture with others. It felt natural, meaningful, and deeply fulfilling in a way I hadn’t experienced before.”
Those dinners, held under the name Mi Mero Mole, drew a loyal following and eventually the attention of Renew Adelaide. In 2017, Daniella and Kor transformed a former computer repair shop on St Vincent Street into the colourful, unapologetically Mexican space that La Popular is today. From the beginning, there was one non-negotiable. “We are not going to make it fusion,” Daniella says. “We must do it the right way, the way we do it in Mexico. We have never moved from that.”
It is a line in the sand that has defined everything. The menu draws on the extraordinary regional diversity of Mexican cuisine: dishes rooted in Daniella’s own lived experience, the food of her childhood in Mexico City and her years in the Yucatán Peninsula, where she met Kor. “When you see a dish on our menu, it’s not just food,” she says. “It carries a cultural context, a story, and a history that I know intimately.”
Nowhere is that philosophy more viscerally expressed than in the tortillas. La Popular nixtamalises its own corn, an ancient process of treating maize with an alkaline solution that unlocks its nutritional value and deepens its flavour, then grinds it in a stone mill and hand-makes each tortilla to order. It is extraordinarily labour-intensive, and entirely deliberate.
“For me, it is much more than just a culinary process; it’s a deep connection to my roots,” Daniella explains. “This technique was developed thousands of years ago, long before modern Mexico existed, so it ties me not only to my personal heritage but to the ancient origins of Mexican culture itself.
“It’s a living link to pre-Colonial traditions, to the people and practices that shaped the foundation of Mexican cuisine. What truly moves me is being part of a lineage that has nourished generations and continues to carry that story forward every time I cook from scratch.”
The results speak for themselves. La Popular has earned a devoted following among Adelaide diners, including many who arrived sceptical. As Kor puts it: “Diners often say to me, ‘I don’t really like Mexican food, but this is something else, this is not what I thought Mexican food could be, and now I love it.’ That means the world to us and makes it all worth it.”
Port Adelaide was not an obvious choice for a restaurant of this ambition, but Daniella saw something others were still squinting to find. “I was drawn to its incredible history, the character of its buildings, and that unique feeling of a place with stories to tell,” she says. “When we connected with Renew Adelaide and were offered a space there, it felt like an opportunity to be part of something bigger, to contribute to the energy and transformation people were starting to talk about.” That instinct has proven well-founded. La Popular now sits at the heart of a precinct that has come into its own, with a community of regulars who have become, over the years, genuine friends. “It’s like bringing a piece of Mexico to the table every day,” she says, “and watching people fall in love with it.”
For those yet to make the journey west, Daniella recommends starting with the Cochinita Pibil: slow-cooked pork, richly spiced, served in a taco or soft bread roll. “I’m confident anyone trying it will fall in love with the flavours and complexity of real Mexican cooking,” she says simply. The full Let Us Feed You menu at $65 per person remains the definitive way to experience what La Popular does: tortilla soup, crispy potato tacos, Baja-style fish tacos, and a spread of freshly made tortillas with salsas, red rice and beans that arrives at the table like a small act of generosity.
A cookbook has recently landed, too, and its ambitions extend well beyond recipes. “I want readers to discover the beauty, diversity, and richness of Mexico,” Daniella says. “Cooking is just the doorway; what I really want is for readers to feel a connection to Mexico, to see it not only as a place on the map but as a living, breathing culture full of history and flavour.”
After more than a decade in Adelaide, the marine biologist from Mexico City has built something she could not have predicted and cannot quite believe. “Even though the path changed, the heart didn’t,” she reflects. “The curiosity, the discipline, and that deep connection to Mexico are still there, just expressed in a different way. What started as a completely different journey somehow led me back to my roots and turned into something even more meaningful than I could have planned.”
Provecho: Real Mexican Food at Home (Murdoch Books, RRP $45) is Daniella’s debut cookbook, featuring more than 120 recipes drawn from Mexico’s taquerías, street carts and home kitchens, along with the stories, history and pantry guidance to bring them to life. Available now in bookshops nationally.
La Popular Taqueria
226 St Vincent Street, Port Adelaide
Open Tuesday to Friday from 5.30pm, and Saturday for lunch and dinner.
lapopulartaqueria.com.au
@lapopulartaqueria
