Santiago Lastra is heading to Mayfair for a new regional Mexican restaurant
The chef behind Michelin-starred restaurant KOL in Marylebone will open regional Mexican restaurant Fonda on Mayfair’s Heddon Street this year.
Fonda takes its name from the family-owned restaurants in Mexico that serving traditional dishes in an informal setting, each inspired by personal recipes from the generations that came before.
The new restaurant is described as building on this concept to showcase recipes from across the country, from the Gulf of Mexico to the Pacific Coast, with a focus on the classics that he seeks out on visits home.
Its dishes will draw on the quality and provenance of ingredients, ‘combined with innovative techniques to elicit the flavours of Mexico in a modern way’.
Fonda’s interior design will take its cues rural Mexico and will ‘pay homage to the old haciendas of the Yucatan, the textiles and crafts of Guanajuato, and the emerging designers of Mexico City’. A comal, a traditional clay griddle used for cooking corn masa, will sit at the heart of the restaurant.
Former Noma chef Lastra opened KOL in 2020. It is currently ranked at number 10 on the list of the UK’s Top 100 Restaurants and sits at number 23 on The World’s 50 Best Restaurants list.
Last year MJMK successfully hit its £1m crowdfund target to raise funds to accelerate the expansion of its Casa do Frango brand across London as well as open a new venue with Lastra.
