Mexican Cantinas in the UK: the Fifteen Rooms Built Around the Bar

A cantina in Mexico is not a restaurant with a bar in it. It is a drinking establishment that feeds you — historically men only, legally obliged in some states to serve food with alcohol, and the origin of the whole botana tradition of small plates arriving unbidden while you drink. The word carries a specific social history, and in the UK it has been borrowed for something gentler: a room where the agave list is the point and the tacos are the accompaniment.

Fifteen venues in our UK directory are classified as cantinas. This is all of them. As with every type-classified listing in our British data, none of the fifteen carries a Google rating, so nothing here is ranked — what they all carry is a written description, a price tier and an address.

The fifteen

Price tiers are Google's £ to ££££ scale, recorded in our directory. Thirteen of the fifteen sit at ££, two at £££, one at £. Not a single cantina in the UK is at Google's top tier, which is itself informative: the format is meant to be a bar.

The agave specialists

Three of the fifteen lead with their spirits list rather than their menu, and if the cantina idea means anything in Britain it means these.

Mezcalito at 119 Sydney Street in Chelsea claims on its listing one of Europe's largest collections of tequila and mezcal, more than 500 bottles, alongside tapas-style Mexican plates. Dos Dedos in Edgar Mews off Bartlett Street in Bath advertises over 100 mezcals and tequilas and is walk-ins only for both food and drink. La Taqueria in Belfast — classified as a taquería rather than a cantina, but worth naming here — lists "tequila, mezcal, cerveza and a relaxed late-night vibe".

If you are going to drink from a list like that, read the label properly first: 100 per cent de agave against mixto, the NOM number, and the difference between a mezcal and a raicilla are all explained in our guide to reading an agave label in a British bottle shop. The short version: ordering a reposado as a shot with salt and lime is the most expensive way to taste nothing.

The Mexican-owned ones

1910 Cantina has two London sites, Balham (3 Ramsden Road, opened July 2020) and Parsons Green (277 New King's Road), and both listings describe a Mexican-owned operation with a focus on traditional flavours alongside tequila and mezcal. The Balham site's listing notes it is on a residential street rather than a high street, which is a different proposition from a city-centre bar: a neighbourhood cantina is closer to the original idea than a destination one.

Jalisco in Brixton Village's Granville Arcade is family-run and has been there since 2011, serving what its listing calls "Californian street-food inspired Mexican dishes" — burritos, tacos and ceviche. Lupe's Cantina Mexicana at 204-206 Cardigan Road in Headingley is described as a "no-frills, family-run cantina... for almost a decade, with an atmosphere reminiscent of a busy" Mexican room. Lupe's is also closed on Sunday on its published hours.

The upscale end: Santo Remedio

Santo Remedio's Marylebone site at 13-14 Thayer Street is described on its listing as a "Casona & Cantina" serving regional Mexican specialities in a space "evoking old colonial Mexican houses", with mezcal. At Google's £££ tier it is one of the two most expensively listed cantinas in the country, and "regional" is the word that distinguishes it: a menu organised by state rather than by format is a different kind of restaurant from one organised by taco filling.

The late ones, which is the point of a cantina

A room built around a bar should be open when people drink, and the published hours bear that out. From the Friday closing times in our directory:

• Neon Cactus, Call Lane, Leeds — 12:00 to 04:00. The latest Mexican closing time in our entire UK data.
• El Jefe's Finnieston, Glasgow — to 01:00, with live mariachi at weekends per its listing.
• El Santo, Miller Street, Glasgow — to 01:00, with a speakeasy cocktail bar and live music.
• Dos Dedos, Bath — to 01:00.
• Mezcalito Chelsea — to 00:30.
• 1910 Cantina Balham — 17:00 to midnight, evenings only.

Call Lane in Leeds and Argyle Street in Finnieston are both nightlife streets, and a cantina there is doing roughly what a cantina does in Mexico City's Centro: feeding people who came to drink. The full late-night picture across all types is in our hours guide.

What to order in a UK cantina

Treat the food as botana rather than as dinner and you will order better. Small plates, something fried, something with lime, and anything the kitchen describes as a snack. If there is elote or esquites on the menu, order it — corn with mayonnaise, cheese, chilli and lime is the single best indicator of whether a kitchen understands Mexican seasoning, because there is nowhere to hide. El Jefe's lists elote and churros specifically.

And then drink properly. Ask for the spirit in a copita or a veladora, not a shot glass; sip it; refuse the salt and the lime wedge, which exist to get cheap mixto tequila past your palate. A michelada is a legitimate alternative if you would rather drink beer, and esquites is what to make at home when a cantina got it right and you want it again on a Tuesday.

What a cantina is not

It is not a Tex-Mex room with a tequila shelf, and the distinction is worth preserving because the UK market blurs it constantly. Our directory classifies 39 venues as Tex-Mex and 15 as cantinas, and they are different businesses — the Tex-Mex list is in its own guide. It is also not, in the UK, a men-only drinking hall with swing doors, and nobody should want it to be.

We have not been to any of these fifteen venues. Every description quoted is the venue's own or Google's; our directory is mapped, not reviewed; none of these rooms carries a Google rating in our data, so this page ranks nothing. Hours change and the late ones change most. The current listings are at our UK restaurant directory.

Frequently asked questions

How many Mexican cantinas are there in the UK?

Fifteen are classified as cantinas in our directory: five in London, two each in Glasgow and Leeds, and one each in Bristol, Southampton, Sunderland, Cheltenham, Bath and Swansea.

Which has the biggest tequila and mezcal list?

Mezcalito in Chelsea claims more than 500 bottles on its own listing; Dos Dedos in Bath advertises over 100. Those are the venues' claims, not our count.

What is the difference between a cantina and a taquería?

A taquería sells tacos and a cantina sells drinks with food alongside. In the UK the line is softer than in Mexico, but the price tiers show it: cantinas cluster at ££, taquerías at £.