Fonda
No avocados and, the kitchen says, no lime, so the guacamole is built from pistachio and cucumber and the Baja taco is Cornish cod, all of it worked on masa off a clay comal set in the middle of the kitchen.
Why go
Santiago Lastra trained at the Basque Culinary Centre, spent time at the Nordic Food Lab, cooked with Andoni Aduriz at Mugaritz and worked Noma's seven-week residency in Mexico, then spent 27 countries cooking Mexican food using only what he could buy locally (Fonda). Fonda is that method brought home to one address. He runs it with MJMK Restaurants, the group he opened Kol with, founded in 2018 by Jake Kasumov and Marco Mendes (The Caterer). That matters to how you read the room: this is a group's second format built on a starred first one, and it carries the burden of proving it earns its own price.
The evidence that it takes the craft seriously is in what got built. Netherton Foundry made the three-pot salsa stand and the ceramic jugs for Fonda, and the tortilla presses working the kitchen were originally cut for Kol (Netherton Foundry). Kol itself holds a Michelin star and ran 17th in The World's 50 Best in 2024, the highest UK placing that year. That standing belongs to the other address, not this one.
Order this / avoid
- Order: the salsas, which arrive first and set the meal. Jay Rayner's account is the one to go by:
the standout, the salsa macha, a toasty mess of ground cascabel chilies and sunflower seeds, much like an Asian chilli oil, but with earthier, adult tones
1. Then the Baja taco of cod brushed with Marmite and fried in a thin batter, the costras of ribeye under melted Swaledale, and the sea trout ceviche. - Avoid: the truffled quesadillas. Time Out costed them at
£24 for two... what amounts to four mouthfuls
and rated the £34 gringa worse,sadly drowned out by overly bold Spenwood cheese
2. Sunday nights are out too, since the kitchen stops at 4.30pm.
What locals & experts say
- Jay Rayner, The Observer, 12 January 2025, on how the plates are built:
There's a beauty to the dishes here that never overwhelms the imperative of flavour.
He also put the name in its place:this is only a fonda in the way the River Café is a café, which is to say, not at all.
1 - Leonie Cooper, Time Out, three stars, 17 October 2024, two weeks into service, and the criticism is specific:
We're given a trio of salsas and told to use them liberally, and have to do just that in order to get a hit off the dishes. Everything is nice enough, but nothing really wallops you with flavour.
2 - David Ellis, Evening Standard, 27 October 2024, quoted by Harden's, on what the à la carte format costs the concept:
It is Kol with the tasting menu cuffs undone. It is cheaper, but still expensive. It is beautiful, and the food extremely good, for the most part.
3 - Giles Coren, The Times, 15 December 2024, quoted by Harden's, giving the constraint its due and then withholding the verdict: cooking Mexican food from 99 per cent British ingredients takes
insane skill levels
, butI did not personally feel the slap around the chops I always hope to get from this sort of cooking, the sharpness and fire that strafes me out of my fine-dining complacency and makes me yearn for Oaxaca.
3 - Tom Parker Bowles, Daily Mail, 26 January 2025, quoted by Harden's, on the other side of the same argument:
Under a lesser chef, this cross-cultural mishmash could be an international disaster. But Lastra is a cook of exceptional talent, and Fonda doesn't just fly. It downright soars.
3
Good to know
- Where: 12 Heddon Street, W1B 4BZ, in the pedestrianised block off Regent Street.
- Timing: lunch Tuesday to Sunday, dinner Monday to Saturday. Sunday is a hard stop, kitchen closed at 4.30pm and the room at four. The bar runs to midnight the rest of the week.
- Booking: essential, through the venue's own reservations.
- Price: small plates GBP 7 to 14, large plates GBP 23 to 29, desserts GBP 6 to 11, wine from GBP 39, per the Observer standfirst in January 2025.
- Drink: the cocktail list is agave-led with a dedicated paloma section rather than a margarita one.
- Hygiene: FSA rating 5, FHRSID 1765494, inspected 29 April 2026, Westminster. Current.9
- Michelin: no standing recorded for this address. Checked against the cached 2026 London list, which holds stars only, so a Bib or a plain selection is not ruled out. Kol's star is Kol's.
Verdict
should-visit — The constraint is the whole thing, and it is a real one. Santiago Lastra cooks Mexican regional food with British ingredients, no avocado and, by Time Out's account, no lime, so the guacamole is pistachio and cucumber and the Baja taco is Cornish cod. That is a cultural bridge with both ends respected rather than a fusion gimmick, and Giles Coren, who was not sold on the result, still called the skill level required to do it insane. The kitchen works masa on a central clay comal and had its salsa stand, its salsa pots and its tortilla presses purpose-made, which is capital spent on craft rather than on the dining room. Jay Rayner: 'There's a beauty to the dishes here that never overwhelms the imperative of flavour.' Weighed against that: this is a group's second room trading on a starred first one, and the two critics who said so were blunt. David Ellis called it 'Kol with the tasting menu cuffs undone. It is cheaper, but still expensive.' Time Out found the flavours needed the salsas to land at all. So this earns a detour, and the trip belongs elsewhere. The thing you cannot get anywhere else is at the other address.