In Edinburgh and need somewhere to go for quick, unbelievably tasty food? Look no further than Wahaca, Edinburgh's newest Mexican themed street food restaurant. You wouldn't want to miss Wahaca and luckily you really can't–with its bright pink signage and intoxicating smells wafting into the street, this restaurant is hard to pass by.
Wahaca started out in London and has been slowly creeping northwards with restaurants opening in Liverpool and Manchester. The Edinburgh location is its first venture north of the border, and so now there's no excuse for not going.
The Food
The menu goes completely against the normal restaurant protocol of starters, mains, and desserts. Instead they have a huge range of Mexican street food classics to choose from tapas style, making it easy to get a bunch of them and share with your fellow diners. I went for the chicken tinga tacos and toasted cornbread with chipotle honey butter. The tacos were beautiful and delicate with a really smokey flavour that was perfect. But to my great surprise as a meat-lover, the real star was the cornbread–perfect texture and flavour. In particular, the chipotle honey butter I spread liberally on top was to die for.
Now tacos and cornbread are all well and good, but for me the real test of a restaurant is always in the dessert. Wahaca did not disappoint. They had the best churros I have ever eaten, generously coated in cinnamon sugar, with 2 teacups of dark chocolate and caramel sauces. What more could you ask for?
The Atmosphere
The atmosphere in the place was extremely relaxed but in a busy, bustling kind of way, with Latin music the perfect complement to the spicy food. If you took a particularly fancy to any of the songs, you could see what was playing on their app. The app was quite cool as you could pay with it come the end of the meal and then just leave–no awkwardly waiting around trying to catch the eye of a waiter.
I really can't recommend this place enough. It was a genuinely unique experience and all of the food was amazing. My only regret of the evening was that I didn't get a few more rounds of the cornbread and churros, but guess that just means I have an excuse to go back!