I went to Coyo Taco London expecting tacos. I left wondering whether I could reasonably justify owning a tequila locker. This is how they get you.
The Miami-born taco restaurant landed in London this summer, taking up residence at Orchard Place near St James’s Park, and on paper the proposition is straightforward enough: hand pressed tortillas, guacamole made to order, Mexican street food and margaritas. All excellent things. What the paper version fails to communicate is quite how much fun the place is.
Coyo Taco was founded in Miami in 2016 by Alan Drummond, Sven Vogtland and chef Scott Linquist, and has since accumulated the kind of fan club that includes Barack Obama, Diplo and David Beckham. I am now adding myself to this illustrious list, albeit considerably less influential and considerably more likely to order another taco.
The philosophy here is “Todo Es Fresco”, or “everything fresh”, and it shows. Corn tortillas are pressed daily, salsas are made from scratch and guacamole is smashed to order rather than scooped from a suspicious vat somewhere behind the scenes.
Most importantly, the food is excellent. The tacos arrive looking deceptively manageable, which is useful because it encourages dangerous levels of confidence when ordering. The Beef Birria Taco is exactly what you want birria to be: rich, juicy and messy enough to require strategic napkin deployment. Prawns bring freshness and heat, while the Grilled Cauliflower Taco proves that the vegetable option has no intention of behaving like consolation food.
There are Pork Pibil Quesadillas, too, alongside tortas stuffed with the likes of Chicken Milanese or mushrooms and served in traditional telera rolls. This is food designed to be picked up, passed around and ordered in multiples. Nobody comes to Coyo Taco to contemplate a single pea positioned carefully beside a jus. The atmosphere follows suit.
Coyo borrows heavily from its Wynwood roots, with music, street art and colour running through the space rather than being tacked on as decorative afterthoughts. London graffiti artist Mr. Cenz currently provides the mural, his futuristic portraiture and sweeping lines giving the restaurant the kind of visual identity that most chains would pay a branding agency an alarming amount of money to manufacture.
But then came the surprise: Bar Coyo. And suddenly my cheerful taco dinner developed a nightlife problem.
Hidden next door, Bar Coyo is the restaurant’s speakeasy-style listening bar, and the contrast is fantastic. You move from the bright, energetic restaurant into something altogether darker: gloomy in precisely the right way, intimate, sexy and just a little dangerous looking.
It feels less like an extension of a taco restaurant and more like somewhere you accidentally discover at 10pm and emerge from several hours later with a new favourite DJ and questionable knowledge of mezcal.
The bar specialises in tequila and mezcal cocktails, with DJs taking over on Thursday, Friday and Saturday nights. There are even personal tequila lockers for regulars who want to keep a favourite bottle on standby, which is the sort of deeply unnecessary luxury I wholeheartedly support.
And then there was my margarita. I like spice. I frequently request additional chilli. I have met many a “spicy margarita” that turned out to have all the ferocity of cucumber water. This was not one of them.
Bar Coyo served me quite possibly the spiciest margarita I have ever drunk. Not unpleasantly spicy. Not gimmick spicy. Proper, lip tingling, eyebrow raising heat, followed by that extremely sensible thought: I need another sip immediately.
It may be one of the best spicy margaritas I’ve had in London. That combination is what makes Coyo Taco work. You can genuinely drop in for tacos and a Jarritos at lunch, head there for frozen margaritas after work or start with dinner and allow Bar Coyo to completely derail whatever responsible plans you had for the remainder of the evening.
London already has plenty of Mexican restaurants and taco spots. What Coyo has imported from Miami is something slightly harder to replicate: personality.
Come hungry. And under absolutely no circumstances make plans for afterwards.
@coyotaco.uk | coyotaco.co.uk
2 Orchard Place, London, SW1H 0BF
