There are tacos but also flautas, pozole and rare agave spirits
London is a city where you can find food from pretty much all over the world, though inevitably some cuisines are better represented than others. Mexican food is a prime example of this. From the opening of Cafe Pacifico in 1982 to the early noughties, our understanding of Mexican food was dominated by Tex-Mex dishes like fajitas and nachos, helped in no small part by Old El Paso meal kits on supermarket shelves.
Over the past decade and a half, tourism to Mexico has been growing. The UK is the largest source of tourists to Mexico in Europe, with Mexico News Daily reporting a 16.8% rise in UK tourists from 2015 – 2018, and that travel has certainly had an impact on the quality of Mexican food available here.
Breddos Tacos, which opened as an east London street food stall in 2011, and then as a Clerkenwell restaurant in 2016, kickstarted a taco trend in the capital that led to a steady stream of Mexican openings. We’ve got Santo Remedio and El Pastor operating multiple sites; a Michelin-star restaurant in Kol from Santiago Lastra, plus Cavita in Marylebone and Zapote in Shoreditch both doing higher-end takes on Mexican food; and Corrochio’s, Tacos Padre, Sonora Taqueria, Homies on Donkeys, La Chingada, Bad Manners, and Guacamoles doing some of the best tacos and burritos in town. Mezcal and agave spirits have also been spotlighted at cocktail bars like Hacha, Doña and Viajante 87.
This year, London experienced another Mexican wave, bringing an even greater focus on regionality and specificity to the city. Jillian and Bryn started Thrift Taco in March, going from a market stall selling tacos and curating vintage t-shirts on Hoxton Street, to residences at Doña and Howl at the Moon, doing dishes like brisket suadero, octopus recado and pork verde tacos. There are already tacos on the Zapote menu but chef Yahir Gonzalez has decided to explore the dish even further with flavour combos like saddle of rabbit with mojo verde and black beans and oxtail with chargrilled lobster at Chicozapote, a new dedicated taco and cocktail bar within the restaurant.
After running Comalera as a pop-up, Sarai Caprille took a permanent spot at Walthamstow’s Crate St James Street this summer, where she’s cooking up tacos (paisa and mixiotes) alongside lesser-seen Mexican dishes like chilaquiles, esquites and flautas. Down at Maíz, recently opened in Peckham, chefs Dany Vazquez (who’s worked at Eleven Madison Park and with José Andres) and Erick of the Los Ilegales food truck in Greenwich, are celebrating something even less well known – pozole. The slow-cooked spice-infused hominy corn broth, often prepared for special occasions and family gatherings, is served three ways at the restaurant; rojo with pork, verde with chicken, and vegetarian, alongside like 24-hour birria, 12-hour cochinita and al pastor tacos.
And the wave isn’t confined to restaurants. London’s ‘Mezcal Mile’, aka Stoke Newington High Street, has got a few new stops. The space that once housed Ruby’s was transformed into Cinco, an agave and Mexican spirits-focused cocktail bar run by the Corrochio’s team (the restaurant itself is just upstairs). The Sin Gusano Project, a social enterprise dedicated to promoting artisanal mezcal, has just opened tasting room and bottle shop Sorbito, where you can try rare mezcals though self-serve dispensing machines, the first time such a system has been used for agave spirits in the UK.
Just a little further south in Shoreditch, Christian Pecoraro, Florian Schulze, and Horacio Sainz brought a taste of Oaxaca to London this summer with Little Fires. The team from Oaxaca bar Sabina Sabe (also on the World’s 50 Best list) collaborated on the cocktail list, creating serves like the Little Fires Picante (mole fatwashed Tapatio Reposado Tequila, Briottet Triple Sec, lime juice and agave), the Corn Colada (Cazcabel Anejo Tequila, corn syrup, Coco Lopez, pineapple and lime juice) and the Chimichurri Martini (chimichurri fatwashed Cazcabel Blanco, Tio Pepe Sherry, Noilly Prat Vermouth and pickled Fresno chilli brine).
According to Future Market Insights, the demand for agave-based spirits will cause the UK mezcal market to top $30 million by the end of 2025, growing to over $60 million in 2035. With these new spots, plus the Carousel team’s Mexican seafood restaurant Cometa opening in February, and El Siete, a new agave-forward cocktail bar from the El Pastor team opening in March next year, the city’s interest in all things Mexican definitely won’t be waning.
