Santo (Mexican)
Above: For authentic Mexican, check out Santo
Our neighbourhood can now boast three Mexican restaurants: the excellent Taqueria, with its street-snacky, corn tortilla-based cuisine; the rather hit-and-miss Crazy Homies and its Californian-inspired Mexican cooking; and now Santo, on that little stretch of Portobello Road north of the Westway which seems to have a new set of cafés and restaurants every time I walk past.
Santo has one big advantage over Taqueria and Crazy Homies: space. Lolling and sprawling are de rigueur at the scattering of tables outside, or you might hang out in the dining room (all exposed brickwork, agave motifs and Jenny-Lyn chandeliers), or prop up the bar in the back room. Staff are attentive and friendly, and the margaritas are dangerously moreish.
So what of the food? Lunchtime is dedicated to the burrito, the quesadilla and the torta (a very substantial sandwich made with ciabatta-like bread), and it seems to be designed for the half-hour lunch break, whatever that is. The burrito with beer-battered prawns is especially good.
Dinner is a more leisurely affair, with starters and main courses, while the weekend brunch features hearty, spicy, egg-based dishes that should send you happily back to bed for a leaf through the papers and a well-deserved snooze.
I bumped into the owner while having dinner outside, and his evangelism for Mexican food was obvious. He has managed to track down fresh epazote, the pungent herb responsible for the pleasantly medicinal taste of many Mexican dishes. It is also reputed to have anti-flatulent properties: given the ubiquitous nature of refried beans, this is no bad thing. Fresh huitlacoche, the delicious black fungus that grows on maize, may take a little longer to find, but he is working on it.
Of the main courses I tried, stand-outs were a goat’s-cheese stuffed poblano chilli (fresh from a Dorset chilli farm) served with a light tomato sauce, beans, rice and tortillas; a firm, sweet sea bream, simply cooked, with guajillo chilli and garlic mayonnaise; and a tortilla soup with cheese and avocado, richly tomato-flavoured, and spiky with shards of blue corn tortilla.
The mole – chicken breast coated with the famous nut, spice, chilli and chocolate sauce pioneered in the convents of Puebla – was not to my taste, but then I once spent three weeks travelling around Mexico in search of an edible mole and I couldn’t find one there, either. Save a little room for pudding: I had a decidedly toothsome concoction of stewed pumpkin and molasses.
Apart from a tendency to oversalt – especially the guacamole and the carnitas – and a rather rustic way with chopping vegetables, the food at Santo is very good; given the ambitions of its owner, it should only get better. Bring on the maize fungus.
Lunchtime burritos, around £8; dinner for two, with drinks, around £75