A review of Wahaca, City Centre

Wahaca had a lot to live up to. I’m a big fan of Mexican food and had only heard great things about this restaurant. You can book online but only for tomorrow or afterwards, this was an impulse decision and so we hopped into a taxi to see what the South St Andrew Street restaurant would be like. Could it live up to everything I’d heard?

We arrived at about 12.30 on Saturday and had to wait a few minutes for a table. This meant taking a buzzer and waiting for it to summon us. There’s a bar area and a foosball table where you wait. The foosball actually works, and I’ve mixed feelings about this. We didn’t have to wait long.

The waitress tried to take us up the stairs to the main seating area. The problem with that? I struggle with a serious limp, and use a walking stick and the many steps might well have defeated me.

Fortunately, a second member of staff pointed out the restaurant actually had an elevator. Phew! Glad I saved the steps at the last minute.

Kudos to Wahaca for adding the lift in. It clearly wasn’t part of the building, is just a small, slow thing but it is there and it works.

We got seated, placed our order and then watched as the tables filled up around us with larger parties. I don’t think the waiter was slow, and I don’t think Wahaca was understaffed, but we did have a wait, and I suspect the larger tables came first.

The menu is a mix of starters, street food and bigger meals. The street food is essentially Mexican tapas, and I suspect the profitable model for the restaurant. I wanted something larger and was surprised to discover there were no fajitas on the menu. I went for the pork burrito and let the waiter talk me into adding pink onion nachos. I’m glad he did. Tasty!

The burrito? It wasn’t a foil-wrapped burrito; it came toasted and with little flags in it. I ate the first half with a knife and fork, it tasted good but weirded me out, so the second half was eaten by hand.

The wait for dessert was longer. Three large churros! Is that sufficient for one person? We wanted to share between two. Wasn’t enough but, once again, very tasty.

Perhaps sensitive to how long things can take, Wahaca has worked hard to expedite payment. There’s an app – a handy way to split the bill – and with it we paid and left.

There’s no doubt Wahaca is super tasty but I’d be cautious about going there if I was in a rush or at prime time.

It feels like the Mexican scene in Edinburgh is getting pretty competitive. This is great news for diners but does make for a complicated scene. I’m going to say there are two types of Tex-Mex in the city. There’s the counter service type that’ll provide a wrapped burrito; locations like Los Cardos, Illegal Jack’s or Taco Mazama. Then there are the fancier locations like Topolabamba and Las Iguanas. Wahaca falls firmly in the latter category and does very well there.