Review: Ixchel, Chelsea

You’d expect a Mexican restaurant in Chelsea to be a little more stylish than a taqueria in Borough Market. Hey presto, Ixchel appears! With a stunning interior of cool creamy walls covered in artfully lighter rustic niches full of ancient-looking Mayan-stylie terracotta figures and some very grand cacti. The colour palette is graceful and restrained. It’s a lovely place to be, though I’d recommend dining at a table rather than the bar; the rustic wooden stools look okay to perch for a quick cocktail, but not for dinner.

The food was very good too, though rather like the decor it has been refined a few steps away from the pure punch and bravo of Mexican cooking. We started with yellowfin tuna tostadas, a really punchy bite on perfectly crisp tostadas with a lovely honest maize flavour that balances well with the brightly dressed raw fish. Crisp garlic chips scattered freely added a great pugent hum. The other starter, beef tataki, included some generously thick and flavour-packed slices of

good fillet, just seared on the edge, artfully platted on a dark lake of very tangy, deep and earthy mole sauce. Highly recommended! Only wanting a light meal, we picked out two tacos: the ensenada, a lovely chunk of lightly battered cod, and the pork rib taco. The long stick of pickled cucumber with the fried fish looked a bit spartan on the plate, but was actually splendid and very moreish – I came close to ordering another round. The scotch bonnet mayo could have been a lot more punchy, though. The pork rib was equally good, with a warm and gentle chilli flavour (that could, again, have been a lot hotter for my taste). Our side dish of crispy potatoes was another moreish one, chunks of properly scrunchy fried potato topped with chipotle mayo and some salsa verde buried beneath.

Mention must be made of the cocktails! We both had mezcal variants, Maureen’s a margarita and mine a negroni, and both were superb. Albeit they pushed the bill up a bit. For food we spent around £35 each, but that was definitely a lighter meal. Still I’m sure £45 each would be a properly full feast. For Chelsea, and for the lovely ambiance, I don’t think that’s bad at all.