Homies On Donkeys

Erik Bautista and Sandra Bello made fifty jars of Mexican salsa to sell at a Hackney jumble sale, called the venture Homies on Donkeys, and sold out fast enough that he quit his job to look for a taqueria site (All Greens).

Why go

The stall they found had six seats inside and eight they built outside, in Wood Street Market in Walthamstow, and it ran for six years. In 2022 they took the Mexican edition of BBC Two's Britain's Top Takeaways, cooking against four other Mexican businesses for five families in Manchester who ranked the boxes one to five (Waltham Forest Echo). The permanent room on Leytonstone High Road opened on 25 April 2023, crowdfunded, in the site Spicebox had vacated (Hot Dinners).

Bautista has cooked for over twenty years and has been in London for about the same, and he has a position about what he is doing here. "We don't have Frida Kahlo on the wall, we don't have mariachis or cactuses or sombreros. But what we do is we have a lot of knowledge about Mexican cuisine, gastronomy, history, and anthropology" (All Greens). He describes three waves of Mexican cooking arriving in London, the first around 2008 carrying an American idea of burritos, and says that for years the Mexican restaurants here had no Mexican cooks in them.

The cooking follows the greengrocer rather than an import list. Bautista buys what is in season in Britain and works out where it goes: "Can I make a taco out of celeriac? Or Brussels sprouts in winter, or Jerusalem artichokes?" Those tacos are the weekly special, and the menu page tells you to follow Instagram for them rather than printing them (venue site).

Tacos arrive in pairs and there is no cutlery on the table, which the room enforces.

Order this / avoid

• Order: cochinito in chipotle, the slow-cooked pork that came over from the market stall, and the chicken barbacoa, cooked low and slow in the house spice mix. The salsa tasting platter, since that product is where the business started, running through roasted guajillo, red habanero and sweet chipotle. Whatever the week's special is. Refried beans alongside.
• Avoid: Sunday and Monday, when it is shut. Reading the printed menu as the whole offer, because the specials board moves every week.

What locals & experts say

• Jason Allen, The Nudge, 3 December 2023: "Tacos arrive in pairs, laden with the likes of medium-rare bavette steak with jalapeño relish; charred broccoli with refried beans; and hunks of slow-cooked chicken thigh with roasted tomato salsa." His verdict on why it lands: "The food is genuinely delicious, and is the product of many, many years of experimentation and refinement on the part of the chefs." He also notes the bill: "it's all quite reasonably priced, too." ref
• Time Out London, June 2024, unbylined: "Moving from its original home in Walthamstow's Wood Street Market hasn't stopped Homies on Donkeys from being one of London's most authentic and downright delicious taco spots." The fillings it names are "carnitas, chicken barbacoa, birria or steak tacos, with sublime sides of roasted jalapenos or refried beans." ref
• Sandra Bello to the Waltham Forest Echo, on the televised final round: "Tacos, in particular, do not travel well so it's incredible that the atmosphere meant it was just really exciting." That is the operator reporting a result, and the Echo's piece is coverage of the win rather than a verdict on the food. ref
• No national critic found. Searched on 1 August 2026 for a review from Vittles, the Guardian, the Standard or the Infatuation, and for a chef pick across all 622 records in the London vote graph. Nothing. One bylined review is carrying the judgment on this kitchen, and that is stated rather than dressed up.

Good to know

• Where: 686 High Road Leytonstone, E11 3AA. Leytonstone station is a few minutes up the road.
• Timing: Tuesday to Thursday 5pm to 10pm, with the kitchen closing at 9.15pm. Friday and Saturday run a separate lunch from noon to 4pm and dinner from 5pm to 11pm. Closed Sunday and Monday.
• Booking: taken through the website. Worth doing for a weekend.
• The format: tacos come in pairs and the table has napkins on it instead of cutlery.
• Awards: BBC Two, Britain's Top Takeaways, Mexican edition, won 2022. A television competition judged by five families in Manchester, which is the honest description of it.
• Sites: one. The Wood Street Market stall in Walthamstow ran from 2017 to the end of 2022 and is closed; the FSA register carries a single London registration under this name.
• Hygiene: FSA rating 5, Waltham Forest, inspected 5 March 2026, FHRSID 1613514. ref
• Diet: unestablished. Vegetable tacos are documented, including a charred broccoli one, but the venue publishes no vegan, vegetarian or gluten wording that could be read, so no flag is claimed.

Jeff's take (his words)

• Note: none. His saved-places export carries an empty note for this row. The master list's line "Tacos save" came from an earlier enrichment pass, not from him.

Verdict (Chef Jeff ladder)

should-visit — Rearrange the afternoon, and it costs almost nothing. Erik Bautista and Sandra Bello started by selling fifty jars of salsa at a Hackney jumble sale, ran a six-seat stall in Wood Street Market for six years, won BBC Two's Britain's Top Takeaways in the Mexican edition in 2022, and crowdfunded their way into a real room on Leytonstone High Road in April 2023. The cooking has a stated position behind it. Bautista will not put mariachis or a Frida Kahlo print on the wall and says so, and he treats the seasonal British vegetable box as raw material for Mexican technique: celeriac, Brussels sprouts and Jerusalem artichokes all get turned into tacos because that is what the greengrocer had. That is a cultural bridge built the hard way, from a chef who has cooked in London for two decades and watched three waves of Mexican food arrive. Specials change weekly and are posted rather than printed. Jason Allen in The Nudge is the one independent verdict on the plate: the food is the product of many years of experimentation and refinement, and it is cheap. It holds at should-visit rather than climbing because that is where the third-party judgment stops. No national critic has written it up and no working chef in our vote graph has named it, so the top rung would rest on a television title and the owner's own account of his cooking.