Yahir Gonzalez and Tony Geary to open Mexican restaurant Zapote

Located on the site that was home to Andrew Clarke’s St Leonard’s - and before that long-standing Iberian restaurant Eyre Brothers - Zapote will launch on Leonard Street on 9 February.

The new restaurant will have a 65-seat dining room as well as a cocktail bar that will serve its own all-day menu. There will also be a 12-seat horseshoe-shaped counter, with a private dining room to be added to the venue in the coming months.

The kitchen will feature an open charcoal grill, with menu highlights that will include wild mushroom quesadilla, endive, and tomatillo salsa; beef tartar taco with roasted bone marrow; coal-roasted sweet potato and chipotle mayo; charred lamb neck with smoked aubergine and tamarind puree, served with tortillas; and grilled octopus with pasilla chilli, pipian verde, and tortillas, which will be made in-house using native Mexican corn varieties.

The all-day bar menu will include small plates such as crispy pork skin, pico de gallo; totopos and guacamole; whitebait and habanero ali-oli.

The mostly-European wine list will comprise several organic, biodynamic and skin-contact varieties. Cocktails will mirror the seasonality of Gonzalez’s food, with a focus on tequila and mezcal.

Debut restaurant

Zapote is the first restaurant from Mexican chef Yahir Gonzalez, who hails from the city of Aguascalientes, and is named after the Mexican fruit whose bright orange flesh influences the restaurant’s colour palette. The space will have a colourful mural wall, a gold-painted ice counter and open-fire kitchen as well as midnight blue banquettes, upcycled wooden chairs, and an abundance of cacti.

It will be run by Geary, who has managed London restaurants including Sketch in Mayfair, and who worked at international restaurant group Aqua - where he met Yahir - for 14 years, overseeing the group’s twenty-plus restaurants in four countries.

“After decades working in some amazing restaurants around the world, it’s a dream come true finally to open our own, in our home city,” say the pair.

“We love the energy of Shoreditch and the diversity of its restaurant scene, and truly believe that Zapote will bring something welcome and new to the area.”