Mexican food in the UK

I was in the England for about a month a few years ago and i was surprised not to find any Mexican food places in site. I was in London and went down south from Dover across to Cornwall then up to Warwick and never saw one, not even a Taco Bell. Was i just missing them somehow? Are there any Mexican fast food or restaurants in England anywhere?

Two things... go and type Mexican into the search box and it will pull up several old threads and two... go to the sticky topic Where can I find American food in the UK and it will show you quite a few sources as well!

We have 2 Taco Bells in Essex now and Chipotle in London.

If you are ever in Liverpool there is a great Mexican restaurant in the city center called Tavern Co. My husband and I only ordered appetizers to get a taste of a few different things since he had never had Mexican and it was more than we could finish. Absolutely fab, only drawback is they don't have the runny cheese that we put on our nachos in the states(its shredded). Making him his first taco salad in the edible bowl tonight.

We have 2 Taco Bells in Essex now and Chipotle in London.

Oh great, i'm glad its started at least. I think. It does seem so little though for the entire country. I'm thinking of moving there but i need some mexican food every once in a while

If you are ever in Liverpool there is a great Mexican restaurant in the city center called Tavern Co. My husband and I only ordered appetizers to get a taste of a few different things since he had never had Mexican and it was more than we could finish. Absolutely fab, only drawback is they don't have the runny cheese that we put on our nachos in the states(its shredded). Making him his first taco salad in the edible bowl tonight.

Never had Mexican? this is so hard to fathom, its one of the most popular and wide spread foods in the world. so odd. why has it not become popular in the UK by now? what is it about british culture or sensibility that inhibits it?

only drawback is they don't have the runny cheese that we put on our nachos in the states(its shredded).

Its called melted cheese in the states, lol idk it sounds better to me

In Sheffield a place called Amigos has open up. Cheap and yummy.

Why isn't Mexican food popular in the UK?  Well, let's see.  It could be the lack of availability of ingredients, the lack of cultural connection to Mexico, or, I don't know, maybe the fact that the UK is a different country than the US?  Honestly, I am baffled by how baffled you are about this.  If you want things to be exactly as you know them, it's probably best not to move to a foreign country. 

Never had Mexican? this is so hard to fathom, its one of the most popular and wide spread  foods in the world. so odd. why has it not become popular in the UK by now? what is it about british culture or sensibility that inhibits it?

You could ask the same thing of the lack of good Indian food in the US.

I would imagine that it's due to the location of each country and the ethnic populations in them: the US is next to Mexico, so it has a lot of cultural influence from Mexico/Latin America (and quite a lot of Mexican/Latin American inhabitants), whereas the UK has a lot of influence from other European and Indian/Eastern cultures (especially as India used to be under British rule) and there are a lot of Indian people living in the UK (close to 2 million, I believe).

Indian food is so popular here that the national dish of the UK is Chicken Tikka Masala, but Mexican flies under the radar because we don't have many Mexican cultural influences here (and the Mexican food isn't all that good when you do find it).

Yes there are Mexican restaurants, they just aren't as prevalent in the UK as they are in the US, in the same way that Indian restaurants aren't as common in the US to here.
It's probably to do with the history of immigration, we don't tend to get too many Mexicans immigrating to the UK.

Since I've been following these topics I spent more time looking at restaurants during my last trip.  I definitely passed a handful of Mexican places in the Leicester Sq, Covent Garden area.  I even found a descent Tex-Mex place in Greenwich. 

The best Mexican I've had in the UK was made by a friend of mine who had spent a few years traveling around that part of the world.  I was actually surprised that a) he found most of the ingredients in Tesco's and b) was extremely creative and re purposed some other non-Mexican oriented ingredients to perfect the dish. 

It does sound a bit funny when people tell you that they've never had Mexican.  I spent 8 weeks in South East Asia traveling with a girl from Kent.  In Siam Reap, Cambodia, we found a Mexican place.  The second I saw it, I knew we had to eat there.  My Brit friend wanted to know what tortiLLas and qasadilla's (pronounced with LL's) were.  Not the best Mexican I had ever had, but it fulfilled a craving!

I liked Mission Burritos in Oxford. And I still say Nanna Mexico here in Cambridge is OK, but some here hate it.

BTW here is an English Mariachi band:



I know it's wrong but it makes me giggle

I like Nanna Mexico in Cambridge.  It isn't the best, some days seem better than others, and I wish they had actual meals, as opposed to just hand food.  But they use a lot of cilantro and their guac is tasty. 

We have a little place called Mexico in St. Ives (Cornwall), but I've never been. I keep meaning to try it out.