Today, fish tacos are spawning delighted diners elsewhere across the nation. Guests at Mercadito, which serves more than 3,000 tacos weekly among four taquerías in New York, Miami and Chicago, can enjoy the Estilo Baja—crispy beer-battered mahi-mahi, Mexican-style coleslaw and chipotle aïoli. Guanajuato, which quickly wowed Chicago’s North Shore with its authentic Mexican fare when the restaurant opened in 2010, offers grilled salmon and shrimp tacos served with chipotle mayonnaise, pico de gallo and avocado. Tilapia tacos are popular with students at Notre Dame University in Indiana, which serves 15,000 meals daily. At the Catholic university, the tacos are particularly popular on Fridays.

Now, even elementary, middle and high schools across the nation are starting to catch the fish-taco wave. When a dish begins to appear on schools’ lunch lines, that says it heading mainstream.

Just as pizza isn’t always Italian anymore (a barbecue-chicken pizza is a decidedly American interpretation of the Old Country’s classic pie), fish tacos aren’t land-locked to ingredients and flavors South of the Border, either.

We at Kendall predict that more and more Americans will discover and fall in love with fish tacos. So we’ve developed some tantalizing recipes that are sure to lure. While all start with a soft tortilla, we played with a variety of seafoods and cultural influences to create fish tacos that are as interesting as they are delicious:

• Hearkening to the islands of the Caribbean, our Grilled Shrimp Taco sports “lime smashed” avocado and bright-tasting jicama-pineapple salsa.

• Our Barramundi Taco not only capitalizes on a sustainable fish that’s growing in popularity, but says “Asian” with pickled daikon radish and carrot and creamy sesame-soy yogurt sauce.

• What’s just as delicious as deli-style smoked salmon and cream cheese on a toasted bagel? A hot-smoked Salmon Taco with fresh cucumber, tomato and onion and a “schmear” of serrano-spiked sour cream inside a grilled corn tortilla.

• And for the kid in all of us, our Tuna Melt Taco with melted cheddar takes us back to easy, breezy summer lunches. But the flour tortilla isn’t the only twist; a flavorful drizzle of spicy Greek yogurt takes this comfort dish up an additional notch.

Try these recipes and taste which one becomes your fish-taco favorite. Or experiment with your own ideas featuring any of a variety of fish and shellfish while exploring flavors from around the globe. Your fish taco, made fresh in your kitchen, will be your catch of the day—and a tale worth telling (and serving) again and again.

Christopher Koetke, CEC, CCE, HAAC, is the vice president of the Kendall College School of Culinary Arts and Laureate Universities International Center for Culinary Excellence.

Caption: This Barramundi Taco with Asian Slaw & Sesame Yogurt takes advantage of a sustainably produced fish that’s growing in popularity. Meanwhile, a traditional fish taco gets a cooling Asian twist within a hot tortilla. Photo courtesy of Kendall College/Eric Futran