Published on April 10th, 2013 | by Gary Robinson

Wahaca, Southbank,Belvedere Road, London, SE1 8XX

Wahaca’s Mexican street food

Inspired by the street markets of Mexico, Wahaca arrived on the Southbank last year in eight recycled shipping containers arranged over two overhanging dining areas to form a much talked about pop-up restaurant. Although Wahacha’s pop-up was intended to be a temporary fixture, it’s still there and if yesterday’s covers are anything to go by, Wahaca’s as popular as ever.

Wahaca’s Southbank experimental London Pop-up

Make no mistake, Wahaca is a pop-up with little formality. There are no reservations, the service is casual and friendly, and your dishes will arrive when they’re ready from the kitchen. Having had a busy morning, once the menu was explained, we ploughed straight in, ordering an array of burritos, tortillas, nachos and sides. Each dish served was fresh tasting and flavoursome, with the star of the show being the tortillas. Whilst they were a little moist, they tasted fantastic, as did the beetroot and goats cheese salad, although the dish would have benefitted from more goats cheese.

Wahaca pride themselves on, “delicious, freshly prepared food, produced quickly” and on this basis Wahaca can’t be faulted. We opted for Wahaca as an alternative to a depressingly predictable, homogonous, high-street chain restaurant, and I’m so glad we did. Although we discovered our 2-year old hasn’t developed a taste for Mexican food just yet, conversely, we re-discovered just how much we liked it, and how much fun Mexican food can be.

Hopefully Wahaca’s pop-up is here to stay

Judging by the Wacha website, their Mexican brand of street food is proving to be very popular and can be sampled at another seven locations across the capital, from Canary Warf to White City. I can only hope the forward thinking Southbank keep this pop-up going as it’s a huge amount of fun and the perfect antidote for the middle market chains looking to dominate our high streets.

Wahaca Southbank
Queen Elizabeth Hall
Southbank Centre
Belvedere Road
London
SE1 8XX
020 7928 1876
www.wahaca.com

We spent: £25 p.p.
Nearest tube: Waterloo

Tags: Cheap Eats, Foodies, London Restaurant Review, Pop-up, Tapas