Birrieria Zaragoza

The Zaragoza family has been making birria on the southwest side since 2007, working from a recipe that predates the restaurant by well over a century. The goat — local, grass-fed, butchered in-house — is steamed for five hours, then painted with an ancho-based mole and oven-roasted until the exterior caramelizes. The result is layered, deeply savory, and nothing at all like the birria trends that colonized Instagram. Eat it in tacos, in a quesadilla with molten Chihuahua cheese, or straight from the bowl with consommé for dunking.

The dining room at 4852 S. Pulaski is spare and unfussy, the staff are unhurried and kind, and the prices are a reminder that some of the most rigorous cooking in this city happens far from the restaurant corridors that get all the press. The drive to Archer Heights is part of the experience; plan for it.