South Philly Barbacoa has been serving authentic, melt-in-your-mouth Mexican tacos to Philadelphians for a decade now — earning chef Cristina Martinez a James Beard Award, praise from Bon Appétit and a spotlight on Netflix’s “Chef’s Table.”
Now, Ben Corn Miller, South Philly Barbacoa’s other co-founder, has launched a new barbacoa spot of his own, which opened last month. Miller, who is Martinez’s ex-husband, is no longer involved with the original restaurant.
“The opening weekend was great, and we had a great turnout,” Miller said. “We’ve been increasing week after week … More people are coming and sharing stuff. Influencers and other chefs in the city are coming to check us out and word of mouth is spreading.”
To go to the new spot, however, you’ll need a passport. The restaurant, Koński Ząb Taco, is in Warsaw, Poland. The name translates to Horse Tooth Taco in English.
“When I was first coming out here, I was looking for dent corn,” Miller said. Dent corn is prime for tortilla making, with extra large kernels and a high starch content.
“When I searched it in the Polish Google, it kicked back this term, Koński Ząb. The kind of dent corn that is used for tortillas is named horse tooth corn here, because it looks like a horse’s tooth … I was like, ‘oh, that’s kind of slick for a name for a taco shop.’ ”
A meet cute in the kitchen
So what brought Miller, a Philly guy from Easton, Pennsylvania with no Polish roots, to Europe to create authentic Mexican flavors? It all started back in the late ’90s.
The story goes something like this: One summer when Miller was about 16, he was headed to his dad’s house. He had his swim trunks on, about to meet friends at the Delaware River, when he walked inside and a random man was standing in the kitchen.
The man was Polish, in his mid-twenties, and looked just as startled as Miller.
“Who are you?” Miller asked, confused.
“I’m Paweł,” the man answered. “I rent a room over here.”
The man, it turns out, was Paweł Fabis — a student on a yearlong visa, studying at community college, renting out a third-floor room in Miller’s dad’s house and working at the family’s construction company. Miller’s dad had evidently forgotten to inform the two about each other.
Once it was clear that no home invasion was taking place, Miller invited Fabis to come swim with him.
“He goes, ‘You want to go jump?’ We’re jumping in the river — out of the trees or something,” Fabis remembered. “I was like, ‘I don’t know if I want to do that, but nice to meet you.’ And that’s how we met.”
From there, the two began to hang out — with Miller showing Fabis the ropes, despite the age gap, taking him out to concerts and cooling off at local swimming holes.
Perhaps, it’s fitting that Fabis and Miller met in the kitchen, as kitchens are part of what kept them in touch through the years.
Finding success
Both Miller and Fabis pursued careers in the restaurant industry. The two worked together at White Dog Cafe, and the original Dock Street Brewery.
“When I was living in Philly, a few years later, maybe 2006 or so, he was in Philly also,” Miller said. “We worked at a couple of the same restaurants, he got me a job at a couple places he was working around town.”
Even when Fabis moved away from Philadelphia to new places like New York or Colorado to work in kitchens across the country, the friends stayed in touch and made the effort.
“When I was with Christina, and we were cooking barbacoa in our apartment back in 2010, he was visiting town,” Miller said. “He was crashing at my place and sleeping with his head between these two stock pot burners that I had in my living room, because we were just cooking everything in the house.”
You probably know some of Miller’s story. He and Martinez opened South Philly Barbacoa in 2015, gaining acclaim and success. As for Fabis, he moved back to Poland in 2012, opening multiple successful Italian restaurants and pizza spots.
“I’ve been in Italy, probably 100 times,” Fabis said. “It’s my favorite place to go. When I eat something, even if I never made it before and I don’t know how it’s made, my brain registers how it should taste and how it should make you feel.”
He currently has four established restaurants under his belt — two of which are Detroit-style pizza spots that he opened after visiting Emmy Squared in Brooklyn and becoming obsessed.
“It’s called Kwadratowy Pies, kind of a play on words in Polish and English, because ‘pies’ means ‘dog’ in Polish. So it’s called ‘square dog.’ ”
Taking baracoa to Warsaw
One could argue that it was fate that brought Fabis and Miller together in that kitchen all those years ago. And perhaps it was fate that brought them together again to start Koński Ząb Taco.
In 2023, Fabis reached out to Miller to tell him he was planning on coming to town, when something strange happened — Fabis didn’t hear back.
“I called Ben a bunch of times and he never answered,” Fabis said. “I wrote a couple times on Instagram, ‘I’m coming’ … no answer.”
Of course, Fabis found it “weird,” but decided to visit anyway. He walked into South Philly Barbacoa to see if his friend was around, but unfortunately he didn’t find any familiar faces.
“I didn’t want to ask because his ex-wife wasn’t there either,” Fabis said. “So, I just left.”
Later that week, Fabis was walking in Center City.
“I was crossing the street, at like 13th and Sansom or something, and then this guy almost ran me over with a big truck — almost hit me,” Fabis said. “He slams his brakes and is honking at me.”
When he looked to see the driver, instead of seeing some angry random guy, it was Miller behind the wheel.
“I’m honking my horn,” Miller said, trying to get Fabis’ attention. “I’m like, ‘What’s up, man, what are you doing here?’ ”
The two got together and caught up.
“He told me that he’s not at the restaurant anymore,” Fabis said. “He had some problems. He’s not together with his wife anymore. And then that was during my last two days in Philly. So we met, and we spent some time together that day and the next day.”
“We went out and had some tacos,” Miller said. “We went to a bar with a friend of mine, you know, a couple of bars — hanging out, and he’s like, ‘Come do a pop-up in Warsaw at my place. Come cook some tacos.’ ”
In February 2024, Miller traveled to Warsaw and put together the pop-up.
“It was really well received,” Miller said. It was also the start of Koński Ząb Taco.
Koński Ząb Taco
For anyone who has ever tried a taco in Europe, odds are that the experience was lacking.
“People open taco shops over here, and they have never even been like Mexico or in America,” Fabis said.
Although the pop-up was successful, a permanent restaurant in Poland was not the intention.
Since leaving South Philly Barbacoa, Miller has gotten more involved in community engagement work in the city. He’s the co-founder of the People’s Kitchen and more recently has been working as a lead organizer behind the Reinhardt Street Community Farm in South and Southwest Philadelphia. He also remarried, to the Mongolian artist Jaakhankhuu Grisha.
Once again, the opportunity was kismet and kind of fell into their lap.
“I was hanging out with Ben for like a whole week,” Fabis said. “During the visit, a friend called to ask if I wanted to take over her Pierogi spot and do something with it.”
Immediately, the idea for a barbacoa restaurant came up. Miller was on board right away and told Fabis, “OK, I’m interested.”
Even though neither chef is of Mexican descent, the goal was to bring authentic flavors and fresh tortillas to Warsaw. Miller has decorated the space with mosaic tile and artwork. They are milling and making their tortillas by hand.
“We’re cooking some of the dishes that we did at South Philly Barbacoa,” Miller said. “I’m using beef. We’re making pancita tacos. We’re making consommé and making some quesadillas, tamales, vegetarian options.”
Fabis recommends the pancita de borrego — pork sausage made with lamb stomach and offal.
“That’s my favorite thing,” he said. “The combination of pork meat, steamed in the lamb stomach, and then chopped and put on a taco. When people come over here at the register and ask me, that’s what I tell them to try.”
Adjusting to a European kitchen has been somewhat of a challenge. Miller has had to be flexible with different equipment, and substitute certain ingredients.
“I can’t find fresh epazote out here,” he said. “I’ve been substituting mixing tarragon and mint and oregano to sort of get a similar flavor.”
Other ingredients have taken Fabis’ savvy to procure.
“We’ve been able to find good avocados at a decent price,” Miller said. “[Pawel] is very astute in navigating the markets, and he knows where to buy everything, and how to move everything around here.”
The plan is to start small and grow larger. The restaurant is currently only open two days a week. They aim to stay flexible with the menu and organically expand when they have the resources.
“The first weekend we only had four tacos and agua Fresca — six items on the menu,” Fabis said. “And then the next week [Miller] added chips. And then the third week he added tamales. And then the fourth week he added corn.”
Eventually the goal is to fill the niche for good tortillas and chips in Poland.
“Our plan is to make a little production company of tortillas,” Fabis said. “Maybe do nice packaging, maybe sell it on a larger scale.”
Miller is still juggling his time between Philadelphia and Warsaw. He’s learning Polish and intends to come back to Philly once Koński Ząb Taco is up and running efficiently and can operate without him.
In the meantime, he’s enjoying the chance to bring his food to a whole new country.
“There’s a lot of people that live here and people that are interested in food,” he said. “So to have something that’s very new and novel in the neighborhood, people are really curious to come and check out what it is.”
“That’s always fun for me and always has been,” he added. “Giving a new experience to people, that they haven’t had before, and then seeing the reaction that they really enjoyed it. And, you know, seeing them come back the next day and bring their friends that’s great. I love that.”
