Restaurant: Los Hermanos

Critic: Madeline Laguaite  

Review: Six brothers bring authentic Mexican food to Georgia with Los Hermanos

Although the state of Georgia is 1,589 miles from Mexico, you don’t have to travel that far to get an authentic taste of Mexican cuisine. Los Hermanos Taqueria does that just fine without the extra miles in its Suwanee, Georgia, location. 

My family and I have frequented Los Hermanos for about eight years, since we moved to town in 2009. In my 22 years of life, I’ve eaten countless tacos prepared with different fillings — carnitas, barbacoa, carne asada, adobada, al pastor, cecina, tinga — along with enough queso, guacamole and various salsas to fill a few Olympic swimming pools. Even with delicious options in other cities (such as Tlaloc in Athens, Georgia, and Nuevo Laredo in Atlanta), the familial atmosphere and quality food at Los Hermanos keeps my family and I coming back for more.

The restaurant we go to — a small location tucked away in a tiny shopping center — is always packed to the walls, save a few quiet hours around noon. Its welcoming atmosphere attracts local families, margarita-loving mothers, soccer fans who want a pint, people on their lunch break, couples looking for a consistent date-night spot and high-schoolers craving a cheap lunch of rice and beans. Though I used to primarily go for lunch in high school, my family (consisting of my mom, my dad, my sister 18-year-old sister, Claire and my 14-year-old brother, Logan) and I now go on crowded Friday or Saturday nights or Sundays after mass.

Los Hermanos’ décor is not unlike other Mexican restaurants in town. It makes good use of large, inflatable bottles of beer and margaritas, and red and green streamers are strung year-round. The restaurant does have gorgeous paintings of midnight scenes in Mexico, including cowboys on horseback, beautiful women and abuelitas making corn tortillas by hand. 

We started our meal with chips and salsa. Contrary to the norm, the chips were rather unimpressive: thicker-than-usual corn chips, unsalted. No sooner had the waitress (one of my mom’s former students and a family friend) placed the chips at our table, my mom reached for the salt and salted the basket of chips without any complaint from the rest of us. The salsa, however, was delicious. The house-made red salsa is made of tomatoes, jalapeños, onions and cilantro. All the flavors mingle perfectly and the taste is addicting. If you’re comfortable with spicy flavors, ask for the habanero sauce, as my dad does every time. My family of five went through at least three baskets of these complimentary chips. 

Although I normally go for a few tacos with rice and beans, this time around, I ordered my one of my favorite types of meat — carne asada, which is thinly-sliced steak — in a burrito with the traditional toppings of onions and cilantro. The burrito came to the table piping hot and drenched in Los Hermanos’ house green tomatillo sauce, a salsa made of tomatillo and green chili peppers, and topped with warm queso. The meal also included a side of rice and beans. The burrito itself was exactly what I wanted: bursting with seasoned steak, onions and cilantro. The queso poured over the top was just the right amount and didn’t take away from the burrito and its contents. Only one element disappointed: the tomatillo sauce the burrito was swimming in tasted off. I’ve eaten carnitas tacos with the same green salsa in the past but this time, instead of being slightly sweet and tangy, it was unpleasantly bitter. It took away from the savory flavor of my burrito, but in the end, I didn’t mind. 

Tired of eating at subpar Mexican restaurants? Los Hermanos can offer you a reprieve from bland restaurants through its crowd-pleasing entrees or at the very least, the house salsa.