Mexican Restaurants in Newcastle and Gateshead: The Eight We Have Mapped

Newcastle is one of the cities our own audit flagged as missing: a city of 300,000 with a serious independent food scene and no guide of its own on this site. This piece fixes that, and it does it with a caveat on the front page rather than buried at the bottom — only three of Newcastle's eight mapped venues carry a Google rating, so this is a guide to what is there rather than a ranking of it.

The UK as a whole sits at 44 per cent rating coverage in our directory, so Newcastle's three-in-eight is roughly par. What the other five carry instead is a type, a price tier and a written description, which for a city guide is arguably more useful than a star.

The three with a Google rating

That is an unusually strong three. A flat 5.0 from 157 reviews is rare anywhere in our UK data, and Chucho's on Shields Road holds 4.8 across 966 reviews, which is the deepest well-rated pool in the North East — Google's own summary calls it a "low-key, quick-serve operation offering Mexican grub such as tacos with creative toppings and beer".

Note the geography: Heaton Park Road, Stepney Road in Shieldfield and Shields Road in Byker are all east of the city centre, in the Heaton and Byker belt rather than on Grey Street. Newcastle's rated Mexican food is a neighbourhood activity, not a city-centre one. Cantina on Heaton Park Road is also closed on Sunday according to its published hours, which for the highest-rated venue in the city is worth knowing before you walk up there.

The city-centre burrito belt

The other side of Newcastle's Mexican map is a tight cluster of counter-service in the central grid, and it is dominated by one local name. Zapatista has two sites — 9 Grainger Street (NE1 5DQ) and 28 Ridley Place (NE1 8JW) — both classified as taquerías at Google's £ tier. Their listings describe an "independent Mexican burrito bar serving fresh burritos, tacos and quesadillas", and the Grainger Street site is described as being in the heart of the city.

Alongside them, Tortilla occupies Unit 4 on the lower level of Grey's Quarter in Eldon Square (NE1 7AP) — California-style burritos in the main shopping centre, £ tier — and Las Iguanas sits at 62-74 Grey Street (NE1 6AF), a Latin American chain in what its own listing calls "a grand Victorian setting", at ££. Across the river, Chiquito at 51 Garden Walk in the Metrocentre, Gateshead (NE11 9XZ), holds 4.5 from 2,491 reviews — by far the largest review count of any Mexican-adjacent venue in the Tyneside area, and a Tex-Mex chain room rather than a taquería.

The eight, by type and price

Pulling the whole set together as our directory classifies it:

• Taquerías (3): Zapatista Grainger Street, Zapatista Ridley Place, Tortilla Eldon Square — all at Google's £ tier.
• General Mexican (4): Cantina (Heaton), Chucho's (Byker), Burritos & More! (Shieldfield), Chiquito (Metrocentre).
• Tex-Mex (1): Las Iguanas, Grey Street.
• Price tiers: four at £, three at ££, one with no tier recorded.

What that distribution says is that Newcastle has no high-end Mexican restaurant at all — nothing at £££ or ££££, where London has twelve. It has a cheap city-centre burrito layer and a well-rated neighbourhood layer in the east, and that is the whole shape of it.

Where to shop, which is the harder question

Newcastle has two mapped shops stocking Mexican products against eight restaurants, which is the same asymmetry we find in almost every UK city outside London. For dried chillies, masa harina, tomatillos and the rest, the realistic options in the North East are the city's independent and world-food grocers, the market stalls, and mail order.

The mail-order route is genuinely good in the UK and better than anything Newcastle has on the high street: our directory holds 17 online-only Mexican grocers serving the whole country, including shops that make fresh nixtamalised corn tortillas and post them. Start with the best online shops for Mexican ingredients in the UK, and the store directory for anything local we have mapped.

What to order, and what to ask

Since we are not rating kitchens, here is the useful substitute. In the city-centre burrito bars, the question that tells you most is whether the salsas are made in house and whether there is more than one; a single chipotle mayonnaise is a different proposition from a red and a green made that morning. In the Heaton and Byker venues, ask about the tortillas — anywhere making or buying nixtamalised corn tortillas rather than supermarket wheat wraps will tell you so, because it costs them more.

The glossary of what the fillings actually are, from suadero to cabeza to campechano, is in our ordering guide. If you would rather cook, birria tacos and carnitas need a butcher and a long afternoon, both of which Newcastle has.

The honest limits of this guide

We have not eaten at any of these venues. Our directory is mapped, not reviewed: addresses, types, price tiers and published hours come from the venues' own listings, and every rating and review count comes from Google. Five of the eight have no rating at all, so any sense this page gives that one is better than another is coming from Google's reviewers, not from us.

Hours change, independents close on quiet days — Cantina on Sundays, per its listing — and the city-centre sites keep shopping-centre hours rather than restaurant ones. Phone first. If we have missed a Newcastle venue, and in a city with this much independent food we probably have, tell us and we will map it.

Frequently asked questions

How many Mexican restaurants are there in Newcastle?

Eight in our directory, counting the Metrocentre site across the river in Gateshead. Three carry a Google rating.

Which is the highest rated?

Cantina at 107 Heaton Park Road, at 5.0 from 157 Google reviews. Chucho's on Shields Road holds 4.8 from a much deeper pool of 966.

Is there a proper taquería in Newcastle?

Our directory classifies three venues as taquerías: both Zapatista sites and Tortilla at Eldon Square. All three are counter-service at Google's £ tier.

Are these your ratings?

No, they are Google's. We map; we do not review.