Santo Remedio

Santo Remedio sits on Tooley Street between London Bridge and Tower Bridge, run by Edson and Natalie Diaz-Fuentes, and it has built its reputation on cooking that goes some way beyond the taco-and-margarita formula many London Mexican restaurants settle into, leaning instead on a wood-fired grill for bigger, more ambitious plates that take real skill to get right.

Whole grilled seabass a la talla and smoky barbacoa lamb cutlets are among the dishes that get singled out repeatedly by reviewers, cooked over live fire rather than steamed or pan-fried, alongside a shorter list of well-made tacos and a nachos plate that regulars specifically call out as properly done rather than the usual soggy afterthought found elsewhere. Ceviche and a handful of small starters round out the opening of the menu for anyone not ready to commit straight to the grill. A short dessert list, built around simple things like churros and flan, closes out the meal without overcomplicating it.

The room is compact and can get properly loud once it fills, particularly at weekends, when a bottomless brunch deal, currently around £50 per person for ninety minutes of margaritas, palomas, beer and cava, draws a livelier, more celebratory crowd than the comparatively calm weekday dinner service.

Cocktails, built on tequila and mezcal rather than the usual gin and rum defaults, are a genuine strength here, arguably as much the reason regulars return as any single dish on the food menu, and the bar staff clearly know their spirits well beyond the brunch specials. A shorter branch in Shoreditch runs a similar formula for anyone based on the other side of the river, though the Tooley Street original remains the better known of the two.

The honest caveat: several reviewers note that portions can feel small relative to the bill outside the brunch deal, and that similar or better value Mexican cooking exists elsewhere in London at a noticeably lower price point. This is a restaurant to visit for the specific dishes it does genuinely well, rather than as an all-round value proposition against its nearest rivals.