Wahaca Brighton's new dishes, and a festive set menu for the party season

The popular North Street venue is serving the new creations in addition to its well-established dishes and as part of a sharing menu (the Festive Feast Menu for £35 per person*).

It’s great to see the continued success of the Wahaca chain, which didn’t emerge entirely unscathed from Lockdown, but appears to be in good health and was chocca on the Friday lunchtime when we visited.

Wahaca’s cocktail game has always been strong with a good, very competitively priced selection largely mixed up from tequila’s and mezcals.

Accordingly, the Friday fun began with double dose of tropicana – a Wahaca Colada, and a Pineapple Mezcal Sour.

The former being a creamy and not too zesty twist on the classic, with pineapple, rum and a splash of coconut, and the latter a more tangy characteristically smoky mezcal affair.

Another strength of Wahaca is the variety of supremely fresh small dishes, and we chose a combination of them from the classic set menu with three new additions.

These new plates include two with a distinctly Christmassy bent, Ham Hock Tacos and Roast Potato Esquites.

The tacos are billed as the perfect choice for those who are ‘ bored of the bird’ with corn tortillas filled with Christmas-spiced ham, and well put together with slaw, crema, pink pickled onions, and best of all, crumbled pork crackling!

Roast spuds formed the basis of the second Crimbo dish, topped with charred corn, with crema and cheese helping to moderate the bite of the jalapeño allioli.

You’re never too far away from a burst of chilli heat at Wahaca but it’s always perfectly done with fresh or rehydrated peppers rather than unpleasant concentrates or excessive oil.

The fresh ingredients abound in the other dishes we had on the classic set menu. Their Ancho Mushroom Tacos are bursting with fresh herbs and fat juicy shrooms, and the

Zesty Bean & Feta Tostadas, and stacked with chickpeas, borlotti beans and organic peas with fresh tomato salsa.

The Sweet Potato & Feta Taquito are a little more straight forward, the sweet potato filling is gently spiced and has a nice smooth texture, which contrasts with the crispy fried tortilla and crunchy salad leaves.

By far the best dish was a new addition to the winter menu, which achieved that most desirable level of sweet and savoury, is the Toasted Corn Bread. Covered in a more more moreish chipotle glaze and a whipped goat’s curd, it dished out repeated dopamine hits and will surely become a permanent fixture at Wahaca.

After the almost obligatory shared churros pudding and chocolate dip (which it transpires you can drink straight from the pot when you’ve run out of churros) and a couple more cocker-tails (an awesome smoky mezcal Negroni and a (ahem) Mexpresso Martini) we were on our way and full of good vibes for this most likeable and reliable of high street venues.

If there had been a few more of us we could have made use of the Festive Feast Menu which features Guacamole and Smoky Sonoran Hummus, both served with home-made tortilla chips, and snack on Plantain and Chorizo Bites ahead of the main event, where your table will be decked out with everything you need for a sensational sharing extravaganza, including tacos, winter veg, the aforementioned Roasted Potato Esquites, a crown of pork crackling, churros for pud and a choice of Gran Centenaro tequila or Cazcabel coffee tequila on the house.

* For pre-booked groups of six or more diners