Gambill’s Taco Casa
1927 S. Harvard Ave.
Tulsa
August 13, 2024
What’s in a name? For hungry Tulsans, the name Gambill could mean anything: vodka, fresh pasta, an outrageously priced (for Tulsa) pastrami sandwich risen from the ashes of a wine and coffee spot, and now, tacos … again.
The newly opened house that Gambill’s built, next to the Pastaria location on Harvard, has had a sign out front for a while teasing some kind of taco situation, a concept that’s lived many prior lives in this restaurant group. It’s been in other locations, and it’s also been called Taqueria Escondido, Gambill’s Mexican Brewpub & Ciderhouse, Gambill’s Taqueria & Cantina, and Gambill’s Tex-Mex BBQ, which was briefly on a sign out front prior to opening. Now, it’s officially open and called Gambill’s Taco Casa or simply Gambill’s Tacos, depending on where you look, with a Taco Bar version readying a location on 7th Street in Tulsa and one in Norman yet to open as well.
Like the other spots under the Gambill’s umbrella, the Casa’s kitchen is laser-focused on honoring traditional techniques. Meats are cooked on a trompo (like a vertical rotisserie) and shaved off to order, and the blue corn tortillas are made in-house. The menu is a clear, pick-a-protein format, with four taco style options and a few related appetizers.
Unlike the other spots, this one seems to not yet have fully emerged totally from its aforementioned identity crisis, with the food and pricing having changed since the restaurant opened in June. Steak is now a daily offering ($3 upcharge) but not yet listed on the menu, and the $12 starting price point for tacos is now $8. The Tex-Mex promises of the now-gone front yard signage live on in the occasional special if not the standard menu, and there are also two hot dogs, for some reason, that I absolutely plan to go back and try because why are those there?
But for the purposes of this first visit, we wanted to try what every taqueria should get right: chips, salsa, and tacos. We ordered the chips with smoked rojo salsa ($7), which was served warm and was very, very smoky, to the extent that I couldn’t taste much else. Not my favorite, but my dining companion both liked it and likened it to the secret salsa you have to ask for at every Tex-Mex restaurant.
I ordered my tacos “kimchi style” with steak on the house blue corn tortillas — which are excellent, by the way, pliable and sturdy at the same time. May my Korean ancestors strike me down for wishing the kimchi were less fermented, because the kimchi plus Sriracha aioli plus what I assume is a citrus seasoning on the meat made the entire thing aggressively sour. It was also greasy, but in the way that I would expect food truck food to be, and I have no quarrel with that since the napkins are self-serve, though by halfway through, I couldn’t pick it up anymore. This lily was so gilded I’m not sure if the steak was good or not, but I still ate most of it. The tacos came with a salsa verde that was really tasty but also sour and with the house taqueria salsa, a bright orange, sweet, garlicky, spicy sauce that I LOVED and would drink on its own.
My partner ordered what I will get next time, which is pork tacos “classico,” dressed more simply with onions, cilantro, and pineapple grilled to order. Paired with fresh corn tortillas and my beloved orange salsa, it was what I am going to describe using a word that makes me cringe whenever I see it in a food review: elevated. There are ten thousand taquerias in Tulsa, and this pork taco was so clearly lovingly created with the same ingredients and felt special because it was.
Gambill’s Taco Casa keeps the endearing scrappiness of its pastaio neighbor, with visible bus tubs, self-serve drinks, and counter service. The casa is, in fact, a lightly remodeled home, and diners can pick various bedrooms upstairs to dine in, if they so choose, which is extremely cool — and in the summer, they probably will go upstairs because the downstairs is extremely hot (what with a restaurant kitchen and blazing trompo setup retrofitted into a house kitchen).
All in all, I get the sense the Casa is still working out a few kinks, but the concept, location, and environment are all solid. Most importantly, the thing the Gambill’s spots do best — taking pains to learn real technique on a new cuisine, turning an ordinary food into something exciting — is already there in full force.
