When Wahaca opened a lot of the press labelled it ‘the Mexican Wagamama’, and when you get in you can see why. It has a very similar modern, minimalist, space efficient feel to it. If you like that sort of atmosphere you’ll be right at home, but I like many like more personality to a restaurant – and that does not mean expensive interior design.

I actually went unplanned, so didn’t know what to expect. We were seated promptly, to a small table for two which felt very squeezed in. To be fair though, all the tables in Wahaca are like that. The floor manager took our drinks order and told us our waiter would be with us shortly. He was. He took our starter then did the same for the tables either side of us. He then returned relatively promptly, first serving the starters to the tables either side of us, then us. This seemed a bit odd considering we’d ordered similar things by the looks of it and we’d order first, but we were in no hurry.

Once we’d finished, he then took our main course orders. Up until this point our waiter had been fairly quiet and polite, except this changed when my dining partner asked to have no dressing on her salad because of a food intolerance. Our waiter decided to criticize my friend for being fussy – to which I pointed out that it was a reasonable request and after all we were the customers here, we’re paying for the food and the service.

So by now we were receiving our food much later than that of the people who were seated at the same time as us, in fact the dishes that made up our main courses came in dribs and drabs, and my side order of rice didn’t come at all until I pointed out it was missing. By the time it arrived I had finished everything else. We would have ordered more drinks during this, except the waiter was being very inattentive – I got the rice by asking the floor manager.

The food itself was OK, not very special. Small fancy looking portions. It’s supposed to be a modern take on Mexican street food using eco-friendly (low air miles) locally sourced alternative ingredients – the result is relatively expensive food that only very just resembles the original dish. It’s nice enough, but its only very vaguely Mexican themed.

Towards the end of the evening, we just wanted to leave. The service as a whole, but particularly our waiter, soured the experience. That aside the rest of the dining experience wasn’t very special, so I don’t intend to revisit Wahaca anytime soon.

My rating: a slightly put-off 3.5 out of 10.

(This review was also posted to London-Eating.co.uk)