Tacos were the dish du jour at the tail end of 2016, with an abundance of new taco-led restaurants opening – and flourishing – around London. There came El Pastor, with its punchy £2.50 24-hour marinated pork shoulder and caramelised pineapple taco. There came Breddos’ permanent home – a taqueria embodying the success of their taco-slinging escapades in car parks and cocktail bars. There came chef Neil Rankin’s Temper – a temple to meat and smoke and animal fat packaged and delivered via the taco.
Interest in the taco, not to mention Mexican cuisine more broadly, is showing no signs of calmándose. Thing is, we’ve arguably not seen its true colours yet. In spring, Martha Ortiz, one of South America’s luminary chefs (her Dulce Patria joint in Mexico City is consistently placed in Latin America’s Top 50 Restaurants list) opens her first venture outside Mexico, at the InterContinental Park Lane.
The name Ella Canta, meaning ‘she sings’, suggests what hopes to go on here – elements of beauty, femininity, and a will to express them. A sense of passion, too –when I ask Martha why she picked London as the site for her second restaurant, she says London picked her. ‘It’s like a relationship,’ she says, ‘when you want something, but it comes to you.’
Much like Dulce Patria, Ella Canta promises to be a concrescence of high and low cuisine. Mexican food, such as quesadillas, guacamoles and ceviche, is food for the people. Martha’s manifesto is about elevating these Mexican staples in a playful fashion, yet remaining respectful to their traditions. It’s a way of opening up cuisine – not like the exclusivity shackled to a lot of food in the UK. ‘Everybody eats a tortilla,’ says Martha. ‘It’s like our communion with the sun. It’s meant to be like that.’