Taco Bell review – whitewashed Mexican-ish fast food comes to Woolwich
★☆☆☆☆ / Mexican

Taco Bell review – whitewashed Mexican-ish fast food comes to Woolwich

For most British people, their only knowledge of Taco Bell will be from the infamous scenes in Sylvester Stallone’s mildly diverting 1993 sci-fi yarn Demolition Man. In the dystopian future setting of the film, Taco Bell is apparently the *only* restaurant left in the world following the ‘franchise wars of the 1990s’ (as Sandra Bullock’s character explains with a straight face) before inexplicably pivoting to fine dining.

While clearly meant as a cheap joke for American audiences of the time, Taco Bell – like many other fast food franchises – is really a transformational pivot of another kind. Continue reading

Madera review – the Mexican Treehouse hotel restaurant that’s fallen off its branch
★★☆☆☆ / Mexican

Madera review – the Mexican Treehouse hotel restaurant that’s fallen off its branch

Tacos with views over London, but it’s barely a feast for the eyes Many major cities across the world have restaurants perched on top of tall buildings – quite often rotating ones. Berlin has the TV Tower, while Munich is graced with Olympia Tower and the CN Tower looms over Toronto. However, the rule of … Continue reading

Casa Pastor review – the Kings Cross Mexican trying to make diamonds from coal
★★★☆☆ / Mexican

Casa Pastor review – the Kings Cross Mexican trying to make diamonds from coal

But the result is taco zirconium Most restauranteurs would kill to have the premises that Casa Pastor has managed to snag for itself. The handsome Victorian brick-and-iron building near Kings Cross sits in what was once a coal sorting yard – the plainly named Coal Drop Yards – almost literally under the shadow of a … Continue reading

Tacos del 74 Dalston review – even worse than Tex-Mex food
★☆☆☆☆ / Mexican

Tacos del 74 Dalston review – even worse than Tex-Mex food

You couldn’t pay me to eat here again. People like to sneer at hipsterish restaurants and bars in Shoreditch and Dalston. They’re seen by many as faddy, shallow trend-chasing establishment serving up fare that’s incomprehensible and inedible to ‘normal’ folk. I have little time for such half-baked nonsense, preferring to judge each establishment on its … Continue reading

Santo Remedio London Bridge review – the best Mexican restaurant in London is back with a bigger menu
★★★★★ / Mexican

Santo Remedio London Bridge review – the best Mexican restaurant in London is back with a bigger menu

Disclosure: I contributed to Santo Remedio’s crowd-funding campaign on Kickstarter with a modest donation in the region of £75-200. Updated 25/02/19 – added details of 2019 revisits Arrogant. Cocksure. Overconfident know-nothing. Snooty elitist. Those are just some of the epithets slung my way in the hatemail that I try to ignore (usually quite successfully). That … Continue reading

Breddos Tacos Soho review – brilliance served with a side of incompetence
★★★★☆ / Eclectic / Mexican

Breddos Tacos Soho review – brilliance served with a side of incompetence

Raffish Clerkenwell Mexican sprouts second branch in Soho Update: 8/02/2018 – added new opening hours A great many things flow through my mind when I’m being ignored at a restaurant, once I become bored with my phone. Will I starve to death in this place, with lunching desk jockeys and freelance debutantes stepping over my … Continue reading

Ella Canta review – hotel restaurant brings modern Mexico to Mayfair
★★★☆☆ / Mexican

Ella Canta review – hotel restaurant brings modern Mexico to Mayfair

Mexico City celeb chef opens outpost in the badlands of Park Lane Update 27/8/2018 – corrected erroneous star rating in end-of-review summary If you’ve told me a few years ago that a Mexican restaurant, backed by famed chilango celeb chef Martha Ortiz, would open within the bowels of the InterContinental Hotel on Park Lane then … Continue reading

El Muro review – Mexican food comes to Muswell Hill. Sort of.
★★☆☆☆ / Mexican

El Muro review – Mexican food comes to Muswell Hill. Sort of.

It’s better than Tex-Mex. Just. Reviewing restaurants means I meander all over London, seeing firsthand the disparate boroughs, villages and neighbourhoods that make up this sprawling metropolis of ours. It’s tempting to think that once you venture outside of the capital’s core restaurant areas (Soho, Islington, Shoreditch and The City, or thereabouts), you would have … Continue reading