Santiago Lastra's new restaurant Fonda will open in London this autumn

The Mexican restaurant​​, which was first announced in February and is a partnership between Lastra and MJMK Restaurants, will open on Heddon Street in Mayfair in September and will showcase ‘the evolution of Mexican cuisine’.

Split across two floors, Fonda will bring to London the cooking of the restaurants, markets and homes that represent Mexico and will serve traditional dishes in an informal setting, each inspired by personal recipes from the generations that came before.

It will serve an a la carte menu that brings together the disparate regional styles from across Mexico. Dishes will be built around different masa-based preparations, with tortillas made from heirloom corn supplied by Tamoa, a social enterprise that promotes diversity and transparency in the food chain, and will be milled and made daily in the kitchen. 

For each table, there will be a selection of salsas, oils and sauces, including salsa verde with courgette and gooseberries; an arbol chilli and tomato-based salsa roja; and salsa macha, made with cascabel chillies, sunflower seeds and honey. 

Smaller dishes will include sikil pak, a toasted pumpkin seed ‘guacamole’ with pine oil served with fried totopos for scooping (see above); and chalk stream trout ceviche topped with thinly sliced squash aguachile and tostadas.

There will also be a selection of comal dishes, including costras, a traditional taqueria staple of ribeye topped with a layer of melted swaledale cheese on a flour tortilla; baja tacos with a cucumber, pistachio and mint sauce, chipotle and sourdough; and tostada with baked beetroot, seaweed oil, marigold and elderflower vinegar. 

Other dishes will include an adobado of charred monkfish with potatoes and spiced, kelp butter; and mole - short rib in a mole poblano, rich with chocolate and chillies.

There will also be regularly changing seasonal specials, with those on the opening menu to include a crudo of raw tuna with pink mole, tomatoes and pine nuts; and duo de callo - confit whole scallops on a gooseberry, sesame and burnt habanero salsa, hidden underneath a freshly made, crisp tortilla. 

Dessert will focus on traditional dishes, reinterpreted with British ingredients, from a sweet tamal with dates, walnuts and butterscotch; to a Chocolate sorbet with chilli oil made from the Pasilla Mixe variety, one of the rarest in the world.

The cocktail list with feature a range of agave-based drinks, including a dedicated paloma section as well as a selection of micheladas. These will include Heirloom Tomato - lacto-fermented tomatoes and chillies with Fonda’s house lager; and Mushroom & Oyster Shell made with stout.

Classic cocktails will also be given a contemporary spin with British ingredients replicating Mexican flavours, including a Pineapple Weed Negroni; a Corn Husk Old Fashioned; and a signature Margarita.

The wine list will feature a selection of lesser-known regions and grapes, favouring smaller, quality-driven producers using low intervention practices.

Lastra is also behind KOL​​, again in partnership with MJMK, which opened in 2020.