Chigwell, Mexican Restaurant Guide

Cheapo taco shop that evolved from a Netil Market street-food stall to this permanent Stokie café, and which has won a cult following over the years – including in our annual diners’ poll – for its tacos, tacos especiales and quesadillas. There is the odd doubter though (“I don’t understand the hype. The tacos were very average. Plus, you sit all squished up in a site where I felt a makeover wouldn’t go amiss”).

“It’s good to see innovative and regular changes to the menu”, say fans of these “enjoyable” Mexican street-food operations, which win many nominations for their “cheap ’n’ cheerful formula, including a “fresh and flavourful” menu majoring in tacos, quesadillas and tostadas”. On the downside, for long-term fans, “the food doesn’t seem as fresh as it used to years ago, by which standard it feels mass produced”.

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.

Don’t run a mile from the plastic life-size Mexican guarding the door to this basic cantina in a grungy corner of Surrey Quays, if you want to discover its “top-notch, authentic Mexican dishes”, and in particular “excellent tacos”. The odd aficionado of Latino fare crosses town for this place. (There’s also a branch near Euston at 160 Eversholt Street).

“The tacos are good, the margaritas even better”, say fans of this ‘little sister’ to the Hart Bros’ El Pastor Mexican brand. Much hyped when it opened six years ago, these days it generates limited feedback in our annual survey of diners, but all reports agree it’s at least “serviceable” for a meal in fashionable Coal Drops Yard, near King’s Cross.

Celebrating its 10th anniversary this year, this popular Mexican outfit from Edson and Natalie Diaz-Fuentes now has three sites, each with a different speciality: London Bridge, with an asador for grilling over a wood fire; Shoreditch, a smaller taqueria; and Marylebone, the latest addition, a casona serving regional dishes plus a cantina mezcal & tequila bar.

“Authentic burritos on Leather Lane” from Mexican food veteran Joel Henderson, who celebrates the 20th anniversary of his first London street-food stand this year.

There’s a certain Bond-villain chic to this top-floor Mexican dining room reached by an exterior red pill-shaped lift up the outside of the Standard Hotel. Complete with dramatic double-height ceilings, funky 1970s decor and floor-to-ceiling windows, it has incredible views of King’s Cross opposite. And the Mexican food is provided by Peter Sanchez-Iglesias, who won fame in Bristol as one of the UK’s top chefs. With all this glam and heritage then, it’s all the more remarkable how little buzz this five-year-old actually generates nowadays. Like so many chefs who have found success outside London and then aim to storm the capital, hitting the right formula can be tricky. One who did make the trip this year says its luxurious Latino dishes and mezcal cocktails are “good” but the sense that it’s “overpriced” is also highlighted as it has been in previous years .

Well-travelled chef Nick Fitzgerald has worked in Mexico City restaurant Pujol, and his street-food stand in Borough Market serves some of the “best tacos in London”. Now daytimes-only, following the closure of the evening restaurant.

“It’s always a bun-fight to get a table, but you get reliably excellent tacos” and “great margaritas”, attest fans of these “fun Mexican” hangouts, whose original SE1 branch in the arches of Borough Market generates the lion’s share of feedback. Locations in Soho, Coal Drops Yard and Battersea Power Station inspire similar praise, but are more likely to be judged “perfectly adequate” or “fine but not great”, and ratings overall took a bit of a dip this year.

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.

“It’s good to see innovative and regular changes to the menu”, say fans of these “enjoyable” Mexican street-food operations, which win many nominations for their “cheap ’n’ cheerful formula, including a “fresh and flavourful” menu majoring in tacos, quesadillas and tostadas”. On the downside, for long-term fans, “the food doesn’t seem as fresh as it used to years ago, by which standard it feels mass produced”.

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.

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”.

“It’s always a bun-fight to get a table, but you get reliably excellent tacos” and “great margaritas”, attest fans of these “fun Mexican” hangouts, whose original SE1 branch in the arches of Borough Market generates the lion’s share of feedback. Locations in Soho, Coal Drops Yard and Battersea Power Station inspire similar praise, but are more likely to be judged “perfectly adequate” or “fine but not great”, and ratings overall took a bit of a dip this year.

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.)

“Brilliant, just brilliant!” – “Kol saves the air miles of a visit to Mexico City and the fine dining scene there and shows how British ingredients can have a Central American lift” exclaim fans of Santiago Lastra’s “clubby” Latino off Portman Square; and what’s more you get a “fun evening, washing it all down with delicious cocktails”. “The innovation on show is seriously impressive using mainly UK ingredients” and it results in “an astonishing tasting menu, full of original and absolutely delicious flavours”. The occasional dud experience is reported (“interesting concept, but the result lacked zing”) but the more common gripe is that “it is PRICEY!”. Santiago has also confused matters with the opening this year of a cheaper spin-off, Fonda (see also – “Kol is a favourite of ours, but now Fonda is open we don’t go to Kol as often because it is so seriously expensive – but it is nonetheless the best Mexican food you will get in London and it is its skills with spicing that makes us still go back for more.”).

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.

“Excellent mojitos and very nice tacos” have established this lively Notting Hill cantina (a street stall before it moved indoors 21 years ago) as one of the “very few good Mexican restaurants in London” – it helps that it’s “reasonable value for money”. It was a favourite of David Cameron back in the day… perhaps it still is? There’s now an offshoot in Exmouth Market.