Over the last four years, the menu at Carousel’s wine bar on Charlotte Street has been creeping in a certain direction. “It began as a drop-in, drop-out, super casual place, with no reservations,” Carousel co-founder Ollie Templeton says. The food started “very snacky”, but over time, “the flavours started getting a bit more Mexican”, he says. Now, it’s going full Mexican.
Tomorrow, February 20, the wine bar reopens as Cometa, a permanent restaurant inspired by the coastal cuisine of Mexico. It’s a collaboration between Templeton and Mexico City-born chefs Alejandra Juarez and José Lizarralde Serralde.
After working at Mexico City institutions Nicos and Meroma, and later the now-closed Relae in Copenhagen, Lizarralde Serralde arrived in London during Covid and ended up volunteering with Carousel’s Hospitality for Heroes initiative. “We got along straight away,” says Templeton. Lizarralde Serralde never left.
Juarez met Templeton at Burning Man in 2022. “We were cooking breakfast, lunch and dinner for 300 people out of a shipping container,” says Templeton. “It was pretty much non-stop.” At one point they were making “20 kilos of Caesar salad with a bucket and a stick blender”. Juarez was holding the blender. “I was like – fuck, she’s really good.”
Following training at Eduardo Garcia’s Maximo in Mexico City and a stint with Ignacio Mattos at Estela in New York, Juarez joined Templeton and Lizarralde Serralde in the Carousel kitchens.
The Cometa menu makes the most of Carousel’s longstanding relationships with dayboat fishermen. It is “inspired a little bit from everywhere – Ensenada, Veracruz, Sinaloa, Mexico City cantinas,” says Lizarralde Serralde.
What sets Cometa apart from London’s other Mexican restaurants, he says, is its approach to how fish is prepared. “Mexican seafood is veggies and fresh fish – but it’s also dressing: Maggi. Worcestershire. Tabasco. It’s not like a scallop with a pinch of salt,” he laughs. “It’s not really subtle.”
The opening section is inspired by street carts in Ensenada, a city on the Baja California peninsula. “Queues of people just standing in the sun, eating with their hands. That experience is the beginning of the menu,” says Templeton. “We’re straight in with oysters, ceviche, aguachile.”
Cutlery is pretty much forbidden. “People eat ceviche with a fork,” Juarez says, eyes widening. “No. You grab a spoon, you grab a tostada, and you get messy. That’s part of the culture.”
Juarez will bring the perfectionism she picked up from García at Maximo. “Everything needs to be done well all the time … If I’m going to do it, I’m going to do it seriously.”
Her lobster flauta, inspired by Bajan cuisine, is a highlight. Beans and lobster are wrapped in flour tortillas and served with a bisque made from “all the legs and claws and brains and shells”, Juarez says.
Elsewhere, Lizarralde Serralde’s crab rice riffs on arroz a la tumbada from Veracruz. Enriched with a dollop of smoked eel cream and a generous portion of Dorset crab, “It’s a very creamy, deep, intense crab-flavoured rice,” he says, “I remember as a kid having soup and putting cold cream on top … it has the same hot and cold thing.”
There is the odd ode to inland Mexico, too, including a beetroot dish with a mole that draws on recipes Lizarralde Serralde learned at the restaurants he worked at in Mexico. “The process of mole takes three people and like a week,” he says. “You don’t stop stirring.” At Cometa, they won’t be maintaining a mythical “mother mole” like they do at the likes of Pujol (“that’s a PR genius move,” Lizarralde Serralde says, laughing).
Templeton’s cult fried chicken has survived the transition, though only just. “We debated a lot about whether to serve it,” he says. “It’s our most popular dish. But we want this place to be about so much more than that.” It’s glazed in a habanero dressing inspired by Yucatán flavours, and there will only be around 15 portions available each day.
To drink, there are three Margaritas – classic, spicy and a tamarind house take – alongside a tequila Old Fashioned and a Carajillo (a coffee-based cocktail). An intriguing pineapple Espresso Martini, meanwhile, riffs on the original with sweet, sticky grilled fruit.
There is also a big focus on non-alcoholic options. “My association with Mexican seafood restaurants is being so hungover you can’t start with a Margarita,” Templeton says. “You need an agua fresca. You need something that brings you back to life.” Expect hibiscus and cardamom, guava and salted lime sodas, which are “basically electrolytes,” he laughs.
Seasonality is something Lizarralde Serralde admits took getting used to in the UK (“In Mexico, everything is available all the time.”), but it will dictate the details. Desserts will shift from rhubarb to summer berries and fish will change daily depending on what’s landed. “We might not change the whole dish,” Templeton says, “but we’ll change the components inside it.”
Cometa
19–23 Charlotte Street, W1T 1RL
Hours:
Tue to Sat midday–3pm, 5pm–11pm