Shoreditch in east London can be a bit much these days. The city’s gravitational pull moved eastwards many moons ago, but in recent years this particular part of it has hit a nadir of skyscrapers, slick hotel openings and post-bottomless brunch screaming. However, wander down Leonard Street, and you’ll spot what seems to be a large orange acorn marking the Mexican restaurant, Zapote.
It’s not an acorn, though; it’s a soft, fleshy, sweet fruit called a sapote which, very roughly speaking, looks like a peach mated with a beef tomato and tastes like sweet potato. The sapote is hugely popular from southern Mexico all the way to Nicaragua, and in some areas of south-east Asia, too, as well as in this new opening by chef Yahir Gonzalez, who himself hails from Aguascalientes in central Mexico. Zapote is co-founded by Tony Geary, an industry stalwart with long experience of running some of the more hectic of London’s dining establishments, among them Sketch, before overseeing the 20-restaurant roster of the Aqua group, which includes Hutong, Aqua Shard, Aqua Kyoto and so on.
After spinning all those plates, Zapote must feel to Geary a bit more zen, because it is a large but serene space, with 65 covers in the dining area and a pretty, horseshoe bar that serves cocktails such as the Zapote 90, which is a feisty whirlwind of Casamigos tequila with Ojo de Dios Mezcal, orgeat and lemon. Drink a couple of those with a side of crisp pork skin (posh Mexican pork scratchings), dip it in the lovely, punchy pico de gallo and see if you care about life then.
Eagle-eyed restaurant chasers may have noticed that Zapote’s address was, until recently, the fancy and trendy St Leonard’s, which burned bright and fast – until it didn’t. This new incarnation is both brighter and cosier, with an art deco-leaning collage of clashing, colourful wallpaper creating a backdrop against which to eat raw beef tacos with a side of wobbly roast bone marrow, or the beauty contest-winning roast red pepper and black bean tostada – a vibrant explosion of red almost too pretty to eat, but well worth the ensuing wilful destruction, because it zings with freshness.
Vegetarians do well at Zapote, too. Coal-roasted sweet potato with smoky chipotle is cooked in embers until just so, before being festooned with chilli: this is thoughtful, meat-free cooking. The crisp baby artichokes are also very good, plus it makes sense to let someone else take the strain of cooking those little critters, especially when they serve them with a lush, green pipián sauce. And I last saw black-bean pozole in Las Vegas, when I helped a Mexican cook make about 50 litres of the stuff using a mechanical stirrer that was almost as big as me, but, happily, here at Zapote, the pozole is a much more refined affair, topped with picked white crab and served inside a crab shell.
In fact, the menu is a deft mix of the recognisably Mexican as a Brit might view it and something altogether more classy. Yes, there are tacos, tostadas and tortillas, but this is also fine, thoughtful, worldly dining where refined slices of lamb neck, charred outside and pink within, turn up on a sleek bed of smoked aubergine flesh with tamarind puree. The accompanying tortilla, made with native Mexican corn, is served in a dainty, woven pochette, which one places beside a gaspingly beautiful, sea-green Portland Stone Ware side plate and thinks: “I’m not in the Chiquito on Leicester Square now, am I?” Certainly not with a fancy plate of sea bass aquachile that comes draped delicately with shaved fennel, dill and cucumber.
Zapote is a date-night kind of place, or for dinner with a client you’d actually like to talk to. Service is diligent: you can have as much or as little info about what you order as you like, but if you require it, every detail comes with a back story, because this place is quite clearly a labour of love. It is a combination of Gonzalez’s memories of Mexican cuisine mixed with his ambitions for its future, all served in a setting that could be Greenwich Village and feels a million miles from the silent discos and prosecco pedal-bus experiences that Shoreditch now offers in profusion.
Finish off dinner with one of their fearsome but delicious white-chocolate-topped doughnuts, which are dark, brooding and covered in a glorious, thick marmalade; or a delightful creme caramel made with coconut and topped with coriander and soft pineapple – though that is really just a few glorious spoonfuls, so should be treated as a post-pudding chaser. Zapote is a place to have up your sleeve whenever anyone mentions “going up Shoreditch”. Proceed straight to the bar and order a mezcal. This is not a drill.
Zapote 70 Leonard Street, London EC2, 020-7613 5942. Open lunch Tues- Sat, noon-2.30pm; dinner Tues-Sat, 5.30-10pm (10.30pm Fri & Sat). From about £40 a head, plus drinks and service
