Taco Bell Just Announced 20 New Menu Items With A Hollywood Award Show And A Crème Brûlée Crunchwrap

Taco Bell just dropped a twenty-item gauntlet on the fast-food industry. If you clicked this link looking for the new menu items, let us get the utility out of the way right now: Nacho Fries are officially permanent. They invented an edible Fire Queso Sauce Packet. They teamed up with Christina Tosi’s Milk Bar for a Birthday Cake Empanada. And… they are releasing a Crème Brûlée Crunchwrap Slider.

But we’ll get to the full menu reveal below…

To unleash this staggering slate of innovation, Taco Bell bypassed the polite press release entirely and threw their own twisted, high-octane award show. Their wildly enabling PR team—the same crew that unleashed me at the Taco Bell x Bad Birdie golf tournament last July—handed me a credential, pointed me toward the purple carpet, and cut me loose. Armed with dangerous proximity to Baja Blast in champagne flutes, I plunged headfirst into the spectacle.

Most Hollywood award shows are self-serious endurance tests we suffer through just to monetize the media’s viral circus the next morning. But when Taco Bell takes over the Hollywood Palladium, the “awards” are edible, Vince Staples is hosting, and a pop star does an unscripted backflip to reveal a dessert menu.

Welcome to Live Más LIVE. Or, as Taco Bell’s Chief Brand Officer Taylor Montgomery calls it, “an unhinged night at the Palladium.”

Live Más LIVE is the Apple Keynote if Steve Jobs wore a track jacket and unveiled a digestible packet of hot cheese. It is a live-fire focus group designed to prove that Taco Bell has mutated far beyond the mundane definition of a restaurant into a bona fide cultural insurgent.

A few days after the Diablo dust settled, I caught up with Taylor to figure out how a fast-food company decided to rip up the traditional marketing playbook and write its own rules.

The Apple Keynote For Fast Food

“We’re a one-of-one brand, just like Apple, just like Tesla,” Taylor told me. You only drop a quote like that when you know you have a Crème Brûlée Crunchwrap in your back pocket.

The entire concept for Live Más LIVE spawned from that exact comparison. Taylor was watching Apple’s Worldwide Developers Conference and had an epiphany about the grandiose spectacle surrounding products most people cannot even afford. He pitched the idea to CEO Sean Tresvant while the two were driving up to L.A. for dinner with LeBron James and Maverick Carter.

“I was like, if Apple can do it, why can’t we do that?” Taylor explained. “He’s like, ‘That’s a really great idea. I love it. Let’s do it in three months.'”

That same shoot-from-the-hip ethos drove the broadcast. Taylor picked up the phone, called the brass at Peacock, and pitched streaming the show to the masses. The response was immediate and enthusiastic: “Great, awesome. Do it. Let me know how I can help.”

Treating a cheese-stuffed tortilla with the exact same visionary reverence a tech billionaire reserves for a Mars rocket is a completely ruthless way to run a fast-food empire…. and it is exactly why it works.

Taco Bell’s “Maybach and Camry” Philosophy

Only a brand with this much gravity could successfully put Ariana Madix, Travis Barker (of whom Taylor, a Southern California native, said he was very excited to rub shoulders with), and a choir singing social media comments about Taco Bell in the same room and make it feel like a spectacle. The guest list was a collision of cultures at large, at this current moment: Jason Sudeikis, Naomi Watts, the Bella Twins (pictured above), and NFL superstars like Davante Adams rubbed shoulders with Anderson .Paak, Lil Jon, and Heisman-winning national champion Fernando Mendoza. I watched the whole thing unfold, sitting right next to the culture vulture admins of PopCrave.

Taylor pointed to a tweet the brand loves to explain this exact phenomenon: The Taco Bell drive-thru is the only place you’ll see a Maybach, a Toyota Camry, and a guy walking, all sharing the same love. But even with all that Hollywood and internet wattage, the real stars of the night were the 1962 members, Taco Bell’s elite tier of power users in the Taco Bell app. Named after the year Glen Bell opened the very first Taco Bell in Downey, California, the 1962 club represents the absolute vanguard of QSR fandom.

“They’re the ride-or-die Taco Bell fans,” Taylor explained. “It was amazing to meet them because they’re all so different, from all over the country, and they all have these hyper-specific, legendary orders.” You cannot manufacture that kind of loyalty in a boardroom. It is built entirely on 2:00 AM drive-thru runs and muscle-memory orders. I know this because I spent a large chunk of spring 2016 documenting a ragtag online militia of 40,000 fans who successfully bullied the company into resurrecting the Beefy Crunch Burrito. The 1962 club is just the formalized, VIP evolution of that exact same unhinged fanaticism.

The Benson Boone Backflip and the “Secret” Menu

If you watched the stream of Live Más LIVE on Peacock, you saw Benson Boone do a backflip.

Here is a bit of behind-the-scenes magic: That move was entirely off-script.

“I didn’t know he was gonna do that,” Taylor admitted. “We were training him to ‘flip it’ for the board, but he just went for it.”

That spontaneity is the engine of the current Taco Bell machine. They abandoned the tired strategy of buying a Super Bowl ad and calling it a day. I asked Taylor about the “Made or Made Up” segment, a game show bit where they reveal products that sound too insane to be real.

“Can I tell you a secret?” he asked. “Everything we do is real. Some of those things are things we’ve been talking about, but we just said they’re made up to see what people would say. There’s no place we can’t take the brand.”

The New Taco Bell Menu Items Revealed at Live Más LIVE 2026

While the vibes were immaculate, the utility keeps us coming back. Taco Bell skipped the incremental updates and put the entire QSR industry in a twenty-item chokehold.

Let us start with the biggest crowd-pleaser of the night. Nacho Fries are officially permanent. The days of “limited time only” heartbreak are over. They are now a menu staple, joined by a Flamin’ Hot variant because Taco Bell knows its audience has a high tolerance for spice and a low regard for their own heartburn.

The undisputed viral heavyweight of the evening is the Crème Brûlée Crunchwrap Slider, pictured below. It is a culinary collision that reads like an intrusive thought but executes with absolute precision (I tried one at Live Más LIVE after the show wrapped… as a huge crème brûlée fan, I enjoyed the heck out of it).

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Here is the full breakdown of the 2026 innovation slate, in Taco Bell’s own words, so you can plan your late-night runs accordingly. TBD on dates of the releases. 

Nacho Fries: Taco Bell’s boldly seasoned fries are officially joining menus permanently in 2026 after years of fan demand.

Flamin’ Hot® Nacho Fries: The iconic fries get a fiery twist with Flamin’ Hot flavor® for an extra kick in every dip.

Diablo Dusted Crispy Chicken Nuggets: All-white-meat nuggets dusted in bold Diablo seasoning for smoky heat without the sauce.

Cool Ranch® Doritos® Dusted Crispy Chicken Nuggets with Cool Ranch® Dip: Crispy nuggets coated in Cool Ranch® Doritos® seasoning and paired with a matching dipping sauce.

Flamin’ Hot® Dusted Crispy Chicken Nuggets: A crunchy nugget variation coated in Flamin’® Hot seasoning with a slow-building spice.

Mountain Dew Baja Blast Midnight™ Pie: A passionfruit-forward pie inspired by Baja Blast Midnight with bright, citrusy notes.

Crème Brulee Crunchwrap Slider: A dessert Crunchwrap with creamy vanilla filling and a caramelized cinnamon sugar crust.

Cheesy G Sliders: Soft flatbreads wrapped around a freshly fried white-corn shell layered with three cheeses and choice of steak or chicken.

Cantina Chicken Mexican Pizza with Jalapeño Citrus Salsa: Slow-roasted chicken and black beans layered between crispy tortillas and topped with fresh salsas.

Mexican Pizza Empanadas: Bite-sized empanadas filled with seasoned beef and a three-cheese blend, served with Mexican Pizza sauce.

Flamin’ Hot® Mini Taco Salad: A tortilla bowl rimmed with Flamin’ Hot® seasoning and loaded with seasoned beef and classic taco toppings.

Milk Bar® Birthday Cake Empanada: A crispy empanada filled with birthday cake batter and topped with pink frosting and sprinkles.

Chocolate Fudge & Caramel Empanadas: A two-pack dessert featuring one chocolate fudge and one caramel-filled empanada, available now.

Strawberry & Cream Mexican Pizza Bite: A sweet tostada layered with cheesecake filling, cinnamon-sugar strawberries and white chocolate.

Mountain Dew Baja Midnight™ Zero: A zero-sugar version of Baja Midnight blending passionfruit flavor with tropical lime.

Strawberry Horchata Refresca: A creamy horchata-inspired beverage swirled with strawberry syrup and topped with real strawberry pieces.

Cold Brew with Purple Horchata Cold Foam: Smooth cold brew finished with a signature purple foam infused with cinnamon and vanilla notes.

Salt & Straw® Tacolate Chiller: A blended, sippable evolution of the fan-favorite Tacolate collaboration.

Fire Queso Sauce Packet: An edible, crispy queso take on the iconic Taco Bell sauce packet.

Mountain Dew® Baja Blast™ Under Eye Patches: Caffeine-infused under eye patches inspired by Baja Blast for a cooling boost.

Queso Cracked Cantina Bowl: A Cantina-style bowl topped with a crackable cotija cheese layer that transforms into crispy chips.

Firecracker Burrito: A bold new burrito concept revealed on stage as part of the 2026 innovation slate.

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The Verdict

As the Baja Blast taps finally ran dry and the Palladium cleared out, Taylor summed up the sheer audacity of the entire operation. Taco Bell realized they are no longer just selling late-night sustenance. They are selling a lifestyle. They are selling a world where you can eat an edible Fire Queso packet and then wear Baja Blast under your eyes the next morning to cure the hangover.

“Our fans will go with us wherever we go,” Taylor told me, reflecting on the absolute fun and folly of the evening. It is a terrifying level of power for a fast-food chain to wield, but they earned every ounce of it. “There is no place we can’t take the brand.”

And if that promised land includes a Crème Brûlée Crunchwrap and a Fire Queso Sauce packet, consider me signed up for the ride.

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Brandon Wenerd is the publisher of BroBible. Follow him on Instagram or read about his life adventures and perspective on advertising and media on Substack. His email is brandon@brobible.com

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