London’s Mexican Moment: How Mexican Food Came of Age in the Capital
- James Massoud
- 5 days ago
- 5 min read
In Dalston, mezcal glasses clink softly under low light. Down the road, a self-serve enomatic machine hums, dispensing tiny pours of rare agave spirits. In Covent Garden, queues form for tacos made with Mexican heirloom corn. Over in Marylebone, diners gather for a Day of the Dead lunch that stretches long into the afternoon, fuelled by mole, music and mezcal.
This isn’t a trend popping up overnight. It’s something slower, deeper and far more interesting.
London’s relationship with Mexican food has been a long one, but only recently has it begun to feel like a real charge is formulating. What we’re seeing now isn’t just more Mexican restaurants, it’s a shift in confidence, context and cultural weight. From street food markets to established dining rooms, from tacos to tortas to moles, and from tequila shots to serious mezcal tasting rooms, has Mexican cuisine in London taken over the capital's taste buds?
The Knife investigates.
The Quiet Build Before the Boom
For years, Mexican food in London lived in a narrow frame: burritos, budget tacos, vague Tex-Mex signifiers. Even as the city prided itself on being globally curious, Mexican cuisine was often flattened, simplified for speed, price and familiarity.
But beneath the surface, something else was happening.
Independents were laying foundations long before the wider city caught on. Breddos Tacos, for example, began life as a makeshift taco shack in a Hackney car park after founders Nud and Chris travelled through roadside taquerias across Mexico and the US. That early, scrappy energy helped shape a generation of London taco lovers, and today Breddos operates permanent sites in Farringdon and Paddington, with an international outpost in Oslo.
More importantly, Breddos showed that Mexican food didn’t have to choose between reverence and reinvention. Their menu has always balanced regional flavours (birria de res, Baja fish, tuna tostadas), with playful cultural crossover. Nowhere is that clearer than in their Sticky Toffee Churros, created by Tijuana-born head chef Ian Ciapara. Inspired by the spiral churros of Mexico City’s Molino El Pujol and paired with Britain’s most nostalgic pudding sauce, the dish quietly sums up where London’s Mexican scene has landed: rooted, personal, and unafraid to belong to more than one place at once.
When "Authenticity" Stopped Being the Point
If Breddos helped open the door, Homies on Donkeys kicked it off its hinges.
Founded by Smokey and Sandra Bello, Homies began as a homemade salsa side hustle at a Hackney market in 2017. Today, their Leytonstone restaurant is one of London’s most talked-about Mexican spots; less a restaurant than a cultural hub where food, music and hospitality collide.
Homies doesn’t chase a museum-grade idea of authenticity. Instead, it embraces British produce, creative freedom and big, messy flavours. Bavette steak carne asada, bone marrow with braised chuck, salsa flights that range from habanero heat to deep, nutty macha, this is Mexican food that refuses to be boxed in.
Named one of Time Out’s top five Mexican restaurants in London, Homies embodies a wider shift in the city’s thinking. Authenticity, it turns out, isn’t about replication. It’s about intent, knowledge and confidence.
Sandwiches – and a Signal Moment
By late summer last year, the shift became harder to ignore.
In September, Wahaca – long seen as Mexican food’s mainstream standard-bearer in the UK – did something quietly radical. Teaming up with cult bakery The Dusty Knuckle, Wahaca launched a Birria Torta: slow-cooked beef, grilled cheese, pickles, avocado and jalapeño aioli, served with a pot of rich birria broth for dipping.
This was not just a new menu item, it was a signal.
Mexican flavours were no longer confined to tacos and burritos, they were flowing into London’s sandwich culture – one of the city’s most competitive, expressive food spaces. Wahaca’s co-founder Thomasina Miers described the torta as a "love letter" to the sandwich culture she saw across Mexico City.
"When I was in Mexico sandwiches were everywhere, an inspired development from the classic Torta trucks you find all over Mexico City", said Thomasina. "Our new torta was a love letter to that trip and all the incredible food I ate while I was there. We wanted to capture all the deliciousness and thrill of getting stuck into a Mexican torta, so we teamed up with our friends at The Dusty Knuckle to create the perfect crusty roll to hold our insanely good fillings. I think that together we created something that took the London sandwich scene to a totally delicious new place."
The message was clear: Mexican food didn’t need translation anymore. It could meet London on equal terms.
Markets as Incubators
That confidence is now being reinforced by infrastructure.
At Seven Dials Market, operated by KERB, Mexican food is no longer a novelty slot, it’s part of the backbone. Serving up to 30,000 customers a week, the market has become one of central London’s most influential testing grounds.
This January, KERB welcomes Masa Tacos, a family-run business first spotted under a gazebo in Clapham in 2023. Now operating from a fully fledged taco truck – and following a residency at Corner Corner in Canada Water – Masa brings house-made tortillas crafted from Mexican heirloom corn, filled with barbacoa beef, grilled chicken and seasonal vegetables.
KERB’s model matters; by offering a lower-risk environment for independents to grow – and funnelling a portion of profits into its social enterprise, KERB+ – it has helped Mexican food move from pop-up culture to permanence.
From Tacos to Ritual
If street food and casual dining show momentum, places like Santo Remedio show maturity.
Family-owned by Edson Diaz-Fuentes and Natalie Feary, Santo Remedio’s Marylebone restaurant feels deliberately domestic, inspired by old Mexican homes, built for long meals and conversation. In November, the restaurant marked its first anniversary by hosting a Día de los Muertos celebration lunch complete with Son Jarocho music, Oaxacan ingredients, multiple moles and paired tequila cocktails.
This wasn’t Mexican food as theme, it was Mexican food as lived culture: storytelling, ritual, shared plates and shared time. A proud member of Slow Food UK, Santo Remedio represents a growing willingness among London diners to engage with regional cooking, heritage ingredients and the emotional side of food.
Follow the Drink, Find the Scene
Food rarely moves alone, and nowhere is that clearer than in East London’s agave boom.
On Stoke Newington Road, you'll find Sorbito – a mezcal tasting room and bottle shop from The Sin Gusano Project, featuring the UK’s first self-serve enomatic machines dedicated to agave spirits.
Its arrival cements what some have dubbed London’s "Mezcal Mile", a stretch powered by venues like Corrochio’s, Cinco, Doña, Escudo de Cuba, Viva and Latino Hits. Together, they’ve transformed Dalston into a hub of Latin nightlife, culture and community.
This isn’t just anecdotal. According to Future Market Insights, the UK mezcal market is currently valued at $36 million and is expected to be valued at $86.5 million by 2035 – an eye-wateringly clear economic signal that agave has moved beyond trend status. Mezcal, like Mexican food itself, has grown up and London has made a very large space for it.
A Movement
What ties all of this together isn’t hype. It’s infrastructure, memory and confidence.
Mexican food in London is no longer performing for approval. It’s building ecosystems: markets that nurture growth, restaurants that honour regionality, bars that educate rather than shout, chefs who speak in their own voices. From sticky toffee churros to birria tortas, from heirloom corn tortillas to Day of the Dead lunches, the city is finally engaging with Mexican cuisine on its own terms.
London didn’t suddenly fall in love with Mexican food. It just learned how to listen, and it turns out, it had been missing quite a lot.
