They’re not as crunchy as they should be, he says.

It’s a small detail, but this is a critical moment in Richmond’s fledgling career. The designer is transitioning from amateur cook to restaurateur. He knows his potential will be measured by such particulars.

RELATED: 1 guest chef, 2 hours, 400 tacos

On a Sunday night in December, in a cavernous, subterranean space in a small office building on Bathurst St. near Bloor, there are 45 people gathered. Each person has paid $150 to attend the Mexican feast hosted by underground supper club Charlie’s Burgers.

The price is much steeper than Richmond’s regular $10 charge for three tacos at his pop-up La Carnita, but this is one of Charlie’s Burgers’ less expensive meals. Tonight, diners will eat foie gras and plantain gorditas, lobster tacos and horchata cocktails.

Richmond, 36, has no professional training or experience as a cook. He is the design director at Toronto firm One Method. Yet since La Carnita launched in July, serving only during the lunch hour, he has magnetized Toronto foodsters’ attention with his travelling taco party.

Any reasonably suspicious person may have suspected that the hype over his tortillas was, well, just hype. But his signature taco of deep-fried cod cheeks, pickled cabbage, green apple and Voltron sauce — a blend of cumin, cinnamon, tamari and chili puree — reveals finesse, technique and dedication to quality. The dish is a balance of creamy and crunchy.

Richmond is the talent and the passion behind La Carnita, and a collective is making it possible for him to achieve his longtime dream of owning a restaurant. In the two and a half years since the inception of Charlie’s Burgers, Richmond is the first chef without any professional experience to headline.

“La Carnita has a very similar philosophy as CB,” says Franco Stalteri, Charlie himself, the once anonymous founder of the supper club. “No compromises on great food and pushing the boundaries a little.”

Since July, Richmond and the Carnita gang have appeared at 15 events — they pop up on the street, at concerts, in the Toronto Underground Food Market (run by Richmond’s wife, Hassel Avilés), at a food truck rally. The pop-up events, and a creative sales model, allow Richmond to skirt food bylaws.

And if you think La Carnita is about selling tacos, think again. Guests pay $10 for a limited edition piece of art; the three tacos are merely the gift with purchase.

“Every time we do these events, I use five people from the office,” Richmond explains. “It’s during the day. They should be here working.”

Instead they are helping to refine Richmond’s taqueria concept, a structure dreamt up by Amin Todai, One Method’s chief creative officer.

Todai, co-owner of Toronto restaurants Lou Dawgs and Lucien, made those resources part of his job offer to Richmond, luring him back to Toronto from Guelph in February.

Unable to afford a house in Toronto, Richmond left his job and the city in 2008. He moved to Guelph with Avilés and their newborn daughter, now 4.

By the time the family returned in 2011, Richmond had fallen in love with taquerias after seeing them during a visit to California’s Silicon Valley. He was sure he wanted to open one in Toronto, where he sees a niche — a niche he wants to fill.

He says he’s invested a massive amount of time and effort into “learning, developing skills, learning techniques and testing recipes.” Judging by demand, his investments are paying off.

On its first day in business, La Carnita sold out of food in just over an hour.

“We decided to do our first pop-up — well, we called it pop-up but it was more a concept test. So we put it out through Twitter to the advertising world,” Richmond says.

After only a few tweets were posted in early July, just two days before the event, the masses started to arrive. At the first event, 150 people bought 450 tacos — cochinita pibil, Achiote Chicken and Mexican chorizo. At the next event, two weeks later, 250 people came.

So did a guest chef who contributed a third kind of taco and cooked alongside Richmond. “It was implemented to keep things fresh, to learn and to push myself,” says Richmond. Other guest chefs include Daniel Usher of Ortolan, Scott Vivian of Beast, Adam Hynam-Smith of Niagara food truck El Gastronomo Vagabundo, Guy Rawlings of Lucien and Steve Gonzalez of Top Chef Canada.

“As I got more comfortable, it didn’t make sense to have a guest chef,” Richmond says. “I’m happy that we started the way we did because it meant having to be creative and figure things out. It’s made us better at what we do in such a short time.”

Loading... Loading... Loading... Loading... Loading... Loading...

The timing is right. Toronto has other taquerias, including Rebozos and Mexican Salsas, and modern taco adaptations are appearing on menus of popular restaurants. There are Japanese tacos at Harbord Room, catfish tacos at The Combine and cod tacos at The Drake. Taqueria Grand Electric has opened in trendy Parkdale.

But running a restaurant requires more than filling a gap in the market. After all, some industry experts say 80 per cent of restaurants fail or trade hands in the first four years of operation. It’s just as much about planning, ordering, staffing, scheduling or learning to fix a dishwasher as it is about the food.

Few professionals can do what Richmond plans to and transition to a life of lower pay with an uncertain future. “If I make a nickel off a buck, I’m doing very well,” says David Neinstein, who left his job managing digital content for hotels to open Barque Smokehouse on Roncesvalles Ave. at Geoffrey St. a year ago.

His advice to Richmond: opening a restaurant is a 16-hour a day crash course in business. Learn from it. Barque was popular immediately, but it took six months and an internal audit before the restaurant became profitable.

Putting his name on the elite Charlie’s Burgers roster exposes Richmond to a new level of criticism. His fish and pork belly tacos are wonderful, his chipotle chicken liver pate with headcheese is sublime but the night’s meal is still a collaboration.

Chef Arturo Anhalt of Mexican restaurant Milagro created the dreamy horchata cocktail but he also supplied the uncrunchy tostada shells, child-sized lobster taco portions and too-salty turtle soup, according to the restaurant.

Rawlings made the head cheese, he says later. Vivian and Gonzalez are also in the kitchen. All the chefs volunteered.

It’s hard to tease apart just who is responsible for the food, which prevents Richmond from accepting credit for the hits, although he insists on taking responsibility for the misses.

He knows he’s still an amateur. He has been observing Rawlings in the kitchen at Lucien. He’d like to spend more time, maybe complete a stagiaire at Acadia restaurant with chef Matt Blondin.

Soon enough, Richmond will stand alone.

“The idea from the beginning was a taqueria,” he says.

For months, he’s been searching the King St. W. area for a space to accommodate a 50-seat La Carnita restaurant: “Focused around mescal, tequila, tacos, craft beer, good music, good art, good food.”

He hopes to be open by spring 2012, and when that happens, he’ll leave One Method.

“This is a transition into a new career,” Richmond says. He and Avilés have a second daughter now, age 1. “Hassel and I made a decision that when we moved back to Toronto, we would follow our passions and give it 100 per cent.”