Masa & Mezcal – restaurant review

If Cargo Cantina was Kieran and Imogen Waite’s first attempt at recreating their favourite sort of Mexican City street food stalls from their travels, Masa & Mezcal takes it several steps further.

And the pair aren’t finished yet, either: phase two of this spacious corner site on Stokes Croft will see custom-made tortilla machinery installed and a stone grinder imported from Mexico in order for the team here to make their own tortillas from scratch.

‘Masa’ is the dough made from maize or corn that is the staple of Mexican cuisine, with mezcal – a tequila-like liquid made by roasting, fermenting and distilling the agave plant – the focus of the drinks menu.

Masa & Mezcal was most recently Corner 77 and before that Meat Liquor

To bracket mezcal with tequila, however, is like only thinking of beer as lager. There are more than 100 different mezcals here should you wish to become fully acquainted with the myriad varieties.

And if you fancy a chaser I can wholeheartedly recommend the draft pale ale from Good Chemistry using maize, made in collaboration with the Masa & Mezcal team.

One of that team, operations manager José Moreno, has been with Kieran and Imogen since they opened their first business, Bravas on Cotham Hill; and it’s also a team that will be making regular research trip to Mexico, with the pair hoping that their newest venture “will become a leading authority on Mexican food and drinks in the UK”.

A small selection of the food and drink at Masa & Mezcal – photos by Kirstie Young

The food menu is divided into botanas (snacks), masa, crudo (raw) and asado (cooked on a mighty grill in the kitchen and coming with a stack of tortillas and salsas for an authentic build-your-own-taco experience), with sides including guacamole, slow-baked chilli and tomato lentils, and charred spring onions.

From the masa selection, shredded beef and peanut taquitos (£3.90), like crispy cigars packed with strips of meat, were a particularly hit with my eight-year-old daughter; while a Baja-style fish taco (£3.90) was thoughtfully served by the kitchen with its spicy salsas removed so it could still be enjoyed by the youngest diners on our table.

From the crudo selections, seabass ceviche (£9) was wonderfully refreshing; bringing to mind the beaches of Tulum or Oaxaca far away from Stokes Croft. Like those beaches though, don’t be afraid at being gawped at within Masa & Mezcal, whose huge front windows present the scene within to the world outside.

A vegan menu is most certainly not an afterthought here, with my wife enjoying her mushrooms (£9) fresh from the grill, creating her tacos with coconut sour cream, peanuts and coriander.

I meanwhile enjoyed a grilled whole mackerel (£14) which had been cooked simply and perfectly by the kitchen team which tonight was being headed up by the ebullient executive head chef Mark Chapman, who arrived in Bristol several years ago from his native Perth.

So much thought has gone into Masa & Mezcal and it all works. The best thing too is that it’s only going to get better.

Masa & Mezcal, 77-79 Stokes Croft, Bristol, BS1 3ED
0117 944 6477

www.masaandmezcal.co.uk

Read more: Cargo Cantina – bar review