address: 1 Glanville Arcade, Brixton Village, London SW9 8PR

telephone: 0207 326 1690

After the cool days with plenty of rain on the first Tuesday when you could throw off your thick layers and sit outside Brixton Village was full to bursting and with a guest from the far north, we explored Brixton Village. Our guest was amazed. After having lived in Brixton for 10 years she had eventually ended up back in Scotland and now 10 more years later she was faced with trendy Brixton – a concept we had forgotten was novel as we were now used to seeing adverts in travel books as essential to include Brixton Village to get the cool Britain feel.

This particular restaurant has been on a particularly traumatic trampoline-like trajectory. This is its third incarnation – always a new name but never different in terms of the food. On this occasion they were also not ready for the buzz that the first eating out evening produced. The few waiters ran around trying to make sure everyone had been served, had beer and were happy with their food. Actually achieving all three of their aims.

We ended up inside the restaurant as the weather turned a little cool for those of us who had not thought to bring a cardigan. The high tables and high chairs make it more like a bar but outside there are lower tables and chairs that stretch out into the wide space in from of the Village. This can be your go to place for a takeaway but it can still feel like a restaurant and even though it was busy there was no feel of hurry in terms of moving us out.

We started with beer and here we ran across the first problem. By 8.30 they had run out of some kinds and so Corona was on offer. We started with Guacomole to share – well it is a vegetable and then went on to the main courses. You choose first the outside – floured burrito, crispy taco or quesadilla, then the inside – beef, chicken, etc and finally the sauce (on a scale of 1 to 3 in terms of spicy). We chose a range  burritos and modelos with a range of spiciness (although no-one chose the top one as we were not that brave). The burritos come well wrapped in foil with a right and wrong end to unwrap. I chose the wrong end and the sauce ran out onto my clothes (the stains did come out). Choose the fat end not the one with the twist. You get a knife and fork for the salad. The picture shows a partially eaten taco – we left it a bit late to take the photograph.

This is good Mexican food – filling and simple and even though it is mostly staples there is still a lot of choice. We enjoyed it all and were all full (some of us not even managing to finish). The guacamole could have done with a bit more salt but the main course were faultless. Enough spice for everyone’s taste and the lettuce was not limp. We want more adjectives than tasty but our synonyms programme is very limited. This is worth trying, they have lots of space and the food is great.

Our guest bought us dinner so we do not have the exact cost but we guess it was about £45 for the four of us which we think was great value for money.