Santiago Lastra's Case for Mexican Cooking Made From England
The Marylebone tasting menu built on Cornish caviar, Kentish gooseberries, and one of the best agave collections in the country. Book two months out or don't book at all.
The pistachio mole arrives with topotos, and the caviar on top of it is Cornish. That's the whole thesis of Kol in one bite — Mexican technique, British larder, no apologies for the geography. Santiago Lastra could have flown in the pepitas and the poblanos and served a homesick tribute to Mexico City. Instead he built a menu around what grows and swims within a few hundred miles of Seymour Street, and the result is a restaurant that couldn't exist anywhere else.
Lastra ran Noma's Mexico pop-up as René Redzepi's right hand before opening here in 2020. The lineage matters because it explains the discipline — the fermentation, the seasonal rigor, the willingness to use woodruff and gooseberries where lesser kitchens would default to tomatillo. Number 17 on the World's 50 Best list in 2024, sliding to 49 in 2025. A downstairs Mezcaleria that holds one of the deeper agave collections in the UK. This is a serious restaurant with a specific point of view, and the two-month booking window exists because enough people have figured that out.
Lastra took the Noma Mexico project, moved it to Marylebone, and made it a permanent argument for cooking Mexican food out of a British pantry.
Editorial Deep
The menu covers the arc from a snack course through to dessert in tasting-menu format, and what it leaves alone is telling. No burritos, no combo plates, no concessions to what a Londoner might expect Mexican food to mean. What's on the plate instead: pistachio mole under Cornish caviar in the opening guacamole, confit pork cheek carnitas paired with black beans and gooseberry, a jalapeño and fennel sorbet holding down the palate cleanser slot, a corn cake at the end that reads more like a pastry course than a sweet. The pork tacos land somewhere in the middle of the progression and are the dish most likely to survive as a lasting memory.
The crowd runs older than the postcode suggests — early 40s upward, mostly couples, a smattering of quiet business tables at lunch, jackets not required but worn anyway by half the men in the room. Marylebone regulars who already know the address. Some tourists working through a London Michelin list. Almost nobody under 30 unless the parents are paying.
Getting to the table is the harder half of the evening. Kol runs its own bookings through SevenRooms on the restaurant's website — not Resy, not OpenTable, and this is the detail that costs people tables. Reservations open roughly two months in advance for parties up to six, and the prime dinner slots disappear within minutes of the drop. Set a calendar reminder for the release, be logged in when it opens, and treat it like a ticket sale. If the dinner window is gone, lunch service Wednesday through Sunday is materially easier and the same kitchen. Larger parties go through events@kolrestaurant.com. Amex Platinum concierge is a working backup for the slots you can't get yourself.
The spending decision to avoid is the wine pairing without asking what's in it first. At this tier the pairing can push the per-head bill up by fifty percent or more, and Kol's most interesting drinks are downstairs at the Mezcaleria — the agave list is where the real depth of the beverage program lives, not the wine list. Pay for a glass with the meal, then move downstairs after and let the mezcal do the second half of the evening. That's the version of the bill that earns its money.
Come back in early autumn, when the British game and orchard fruit rotate into the menu and Lastra's argument for cooking Mexican food out of this pantry lands with the most force. That's the version of Kol worth planning a return around — venison or grouse pushed through a mole, quince or damson doing the work gooseberry does earlier in the year. A second visit built around a rotated menu also gets you past the pacing frustration; you know what's coming and can pace the drinks accordingly.
What to eat
Don't miss.
The carnitas course — confit pork cheek with black beans, woodruff, apples, gooseberry
“Lastra cooks Mexican technique out of a British pantry and refuses every concession you would expect.”
Book two months out on SevenRooms, take a glass with the meal, and finish downstairs at the Mezcaleria — the mezcal list is the second half of the evening the wine pairing isn't.
The Verdict
