SAN ANTONIO — A newly rebranded restaurant in the downtown area is getting recognition for its signature drinks and authentic Mexican dishes.
SALSITA is located at the corner of Elmira Street and St. Mary’s Street and was formerly known as Santa Diabla Cocina Mexicana.
The owners started the rebranding process back in November 2024 after two years since the opening of Santa Diabla.
One of the owners and the operations manager, Rodrigo Orraca, said they decided to transform the previously upscale-Mexican restaurant into a cantina-style eatery, and thus SALSITA was created.
SALSITA is a more laid back, casual restaurant but Orraca said they still serve high-quality Mexican dishes with Texas and San Antonio flavors.
“Even though it’s a taqueria and it’s not an expensive place, we want to offer high quality tacos and really good quality food,” Orraca said.
Their esteemed Chef Gabrielle, who is also a partner for the restaurant is from Puebla, Mexico and designed the food menu for SALSITA to fit the San Antonio community.
“He’s really good. He makes really good things. We always say he is a genius in the kitchen because he has different restaurants, different concepts,” Orraca said.
SALSITA focuses on their tacos, even offering a taco sampler of the customer’s choice though Orraca prefers the pork belly.
“It’s small cubes of pork belly and it’s fried and it comes with wok and chicharron, so it’s really good to make tacos. I think that’s my favorite dish on the menu,” Orraca said.
SALSITA is family-friendly and receives a lot of traffic from tourists but Orraca said many locals consistently stop by during the weekends.
“There’s a really good ambience at the restaurant. And whenever we have someone new at the restaurant, someone who hasn’t been here before we always recommend for them to try different things,” he said.
Orraca suggests newcomers try their taco sampler, their torta cubana, or their chicken enchiladas and can finish it off with their moist tres leches cake or their crunchy churros complete with chocolate sauce.
For more about SALSITA or to find their menu, click here.