Southbank, Mexican Restaurant Guide

These “lively, colourful” Mexican street-food joints are, say fans, “great for a quick bite” – “the food remains pretty good (if not where it was several years ago)” and “you can’t complain at the prices”. That’s the majority view anyway, although there is a small minority who feel it’s “very average” now (and its ratings risk heading that way). Founded by MasterChef winner Thomasina Miers in 2007, the group hit the buffers during the pandemic and halved in size to 10 sites in London, with Dick Enthoven of Nando’s taking a controlling stake.

“Properly authentic tortillas and tacos transport you to Mexico City” with their “spicy but very delicious” flavours, at this Mexican duo from the Hart Brothers, whose original venue in a “great location” on the edge of Borough Market is deservedly “very busy”. The Soho branch has a late-night basement bar, ‘Mezcaleria Colmillo’, while ‘big sister’ Casa Pastor at Coal Drops Yard in King’s Cross (see also) features live music.

2023 Review: This “small” Borough Market taqueria is the brainchild of Nick Fitzgerald, who worked at Pujol (one of Mexico’s most famous restaurants before coming to London), starting as a pop-up in 2017 and going permanent here in 2019. “It’s a great location with a lovely atmosphere” and all reports rate the food as good or better.

2022 Review: “Great-tasting tacos… you don’t even realise the food is vegan!” – This meat-free Mexican has (after a series of pop-ups, and a big line in delivery) found a permanent home in a pink-painted unit (with outside seats too) at Soho’s Kingly Court, and is already winning high praise from reporters: “the meal totally sated us and the ‘fake meat’ was amazingly good”. They also have a stall in Covent Garden’s Seven Dials Market.

“Properly authentic tortillas and tacos transport you to Mexico City” with their “spicy but very delicious” flavours, at this Mexican duo from the Hart Brothers, whose original venue in a “great location” on the edge of Borough Market is deservedly “very busy”. The Soho branch has a late-night basement bar, ‘Mezcaleria Colmillo’, while ‘big sister’ Casa Pastor at Coal Drops Yard in King’s Cross (see also) features live music.

“Reliable, generously proportioned burritos with a great range of extra fillings” keeps ’em coming to this fast-food café/takeaway, on a corner amidst Leather Lane Market.

2023 Review: This well-travelled ten-year-old cult pop-up has been “a great addition to Soho” since it alighted in 2021 on the cute, quirky site formerly occupied by Aurora (RIP), opposite the venerable Andrew Edmunds on Lexington Street. Gabriel Price’s highly rated cooking takes an American-inspired approach to the best of English ingredients, pleasing critics as disparate as Jimi Famurewa and Tom Parker Bowles, while Missy Flynn looks after the front of house and guarantees “so much fun”.

“Proper home-made nachos” backed up by “awesome margaritas” top the “short but focused menu” at Edson & Natalie Diaz-Fuentes’s authentic Mexican cantina in Bermondsey (with an offshoot in Shoreditch). Top Tip – “the reasonably priced pre-theatre menu is perfect before going to the Bridge Theatre”.

2022 Review: Impress your friends on Instagram with enviable scenes from the lush outside terraces at this very good-looking boutique hotel in Fitzrovia. Not as many reports as we’d like on its interesting restaurant – where the cuisine comes with a South American accent – hence, for this year, we’ve left it unrated.

2022 Review: On the 15th floor of a two-year-old hotel next to the Beeb – this large (160 seat) and expensively designed perch is little sister to Los Angeles-based Toca Madera. Alongside its (not inexpensive) cocktails, it serves a Mexican menu (lots of tortillas) which early reviewers were not especially impressed by. (On the floor above there’s the rooftop NEST bar which is open for weekend brunch.)

2022 Review: Mexico City chef Martha Ortiz was creating a good reputation for her street-food-inspired menu at this venture, within a large hotel right on Hyde Park Corner. ‘Temporarily closed’ as we go to press: a call to the hotel in September 2021 showed no fixed time had been set for a re-opening.

2022 Review: “The real deal!”, say fans of this ten-year-old tacos brand, which has various pitches around town, as well as this permanent taqueria in Clerkenwell, serving small plates alongside margaritas and mezcals.

“A spectacular room with spectacular views (including from the loos!)” sets a high-octane scene at Peter Sanchez-Iglesias’s dramatic Mexican venue: a high-ceilinged space on the top of King’s Cross’s über-hip Standard Hotel, with a breathtaking outlook over St Pancras station next door, and accessed via an exterior, red, glass-walled lift. “It seems less busy at lunch – it looks more like one for the cool kids after dark”. Most reporters are “pleasantly surprised by the food” which majors in ribs, steaks and seafood from the grill “(I thought it was going to be yet another celebrity rip-off)”. It’s far from a cheap experience, though, and one or two dud meals were also reported.

These “lively, colourful” Mexican street-food joints are, say fans, “great for a quick bite” – “the food remains pretty good (if not where it was several years ago)” and “you can’t complain at the prices”. That’s the majority view anyway, although there is a small minority who feel it’s “very average” now (and its ratings risk heading that way). Founded by MasterChef winner Thomasina Miers in 2007, the group hit the buffers during the pandemic and halved in size to 10 sites in London, with Dick Enthoven of Nando’s taking a controlling stake.

“A revelation: I don’t think I really understood the beauty of chillies until I went to Kol, where they complement different ingredients in each dish… a gentle burn… never overpowering but genius!” – Santiago Lastra’s smart and well-spaced dining room, just off Portman Square, is justifiably hailed by its fans as “one of the more interesting restaurants in the capital”. “Top- quality, seasonal British produce is turned into amazing, refined Mexican food” and it “constantly surprises with its journey around Mexican spicing and cuisine, with many wonderful twists on traditional Latin flavours”. To accompany the menu there is a list of mezcals (and indeed an adjoining ‘mezcaleria’ and cocktail bar) and “many unusual wines which explore the less well known parts of the globe”. “Some of the cooking is clever, some beautifully presented, and it’s all excellent”.

Within the arches of ever-so-hip Coal Drops Yard, this Hart Bros spin-off was one of the first tenants of the development. Surprisingly, given the trendy locale and regular queues, feedback in our annual diners’ poll on its mix of tacos, tostadas and sharing plates is thin on the ground and rather lukewarm.

2021 Review: A 140-seater ‘craft bar and kitchen’ near some soon-to-be developed railway arches in hip Bethnal Green that opened in June 2019, too late for any survey feedback. It’s open from breakfast on – at lunch and thereafter the main menu offering is pizza.

This “surprisingly good Mexican café in the back of nowhere” – well, deepest Surrey Quays – even imports soft drinks from Mexico for added authenticity. Top Menu Tip – “the prawn tacos are great – crispy, juicy and they come with a fiery salsa”.

“Fun and interesting” (if sometimes “very noisy and exhausting”), is the verdict on this “buzzy” Notting Hill Gate hang out, complete with bold Mexican-inspired wall hangings (and soon to acquire a rooftop offshoot at 100 Liverpool Street in the City, scheduled to open in autumn 2023). “The menu is less fusion, more Mexican with a nod to Japan”: “flavour-packed mouthfuls” dubbed ‘Baja-Nihon cuisine’ by founder Markus Thesleff.