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'The weaselly, underpowered guacamole is not a patch on what I knock up for an al-desko lunch'
Mayfair has become so weird and foreign, I've taken to pretty much avoiding it. If I want weird and foreign, I'll go abroad. Apart from anything else, I'm scared of the natives: its restaurant population, with few exceptions, is savage, ready to scalp you at the first sign of weakness. Order a side dish and see.
So what am I doing wandering up and down Cork Street, unable to find my destination because it's too superior for a sign, and marvelling at the galleries where you need a mink onesie just to survive the frost from opening the door? I've been lured by the promise of upscale Mexican food, something hard to get in the UK, whatever the current rash of burrito joints would have you believe. At Peyote, the menu has been created "in consultation" – how I love that fudgiest of phrases – with Eduardo García of Mexico City's celebrated Maximo Bistrot. Mexican food done well is a riot of tastebud-frotting flavours, a cuisine to horn up the most jaded palate. So, yes, I'll travel.
Past the thick velvet curtain is the least ergonomic room I've graced in a while. You need to be Mayfair-thin to negotiate the tables without getting your arse in someone's arroz. There's a downstairs room complete with taco counter, but we're not offered this option. I appreciate that our fellow diners – lots of American accents, very hedge-fundy – don't give a monkey's about the odd quid here and there (you should see the wine list), but when I'm offered guacamole and chips while waiting for the pal, I don't anticipate £7.50 for the guac – a weaselly, underpowered version dandruffed with bland queso fresco, and not a patch on what I knock up for an al-desko lunch. Plus dips at a further four quid: árbol, salsa verde cruda, all riffs on different chillis and tomatillos. Only salsa de molcajete has any personality.
Our food comes, as is fashionable, at the whim of the kitchen. But these aren't courses anyway, they're canapés. Tacos the size of communion wafers, topped with teaspoons of this and that: pork pibil, sludgy and slow-cooked with a backnote of orange and chilli; a morsel of soft-shell crab, cleanly fried, with heavenly cebollas curtidas – crisp, pink pickled onions – on top. Nice enough, but at £12 for three, I'd prefer wow. Never mind "better in Mexico"; at defiantly unswanky street food event Hawker House, I've had tacos from Breddo's that made these taste like damp cardboard.
Quesadilla of hongos (mushrooms with gooey cheese) are as bland as rusks and tiny as the tacos. Laminado of yellowtail, aka tarted-up sashimi, Nobu-style, features creamily beauteous fish, slut-shamed by its microherb and truffle oil dressing. Then tostadas of cactus: coppery-tasting, tinned-textured, teeny-weeny. Top marks, though, for masa dough that tastes homemade.
Peyote makes a bit of a thing about its cocktails, but they're as underpowered as the guacamole. The gorgeous velvet margarita, laced with avocado and topped with a purple pansy, transports the pal to poolside drinking at cheap hotels. Only two things leave an impression of loveliness: blowsy sugar-and-cinnamon churros with a pungent chocolate sauce, and the honeyed Mexican wine, LA Cetto chenin blanc, recommended as an accompaniment.
For Peyote – how odd to call it after a hallucinogenic drug – Arjun Waney, the restaurateur behind Roka, Zuma and La Petite Maison, has teamed up with brand consultant Tarun Mahrotri. Perhaps, then, this restaurant is less about passion than about brainstorming. What hasn't Mayfair got? A posh Mexican! Maybe that's unfair: perhaps it's because Waney's neighbouring Coya is coining it, so Latin America is where it's at. Whatever, he's clearly smoking hot at giving rich people what they want: hardly any food for huge wads of cash. Love the lampshades made from plastic bottles by war-displaced artisans in Colombia, though. They go really well with the wall of lockers for personal bottles of rare tequila.
• Peyote 13 Cork Street, London W1, 020-7409 1300. Open lunch, Mon-Fri, noon-2.30pm; dinner, Mon-Sat, 6-10.30pm. About £65 a head, with drinks and service.
Food 4/10
Atmosphere 5/10
Value for money 3/10
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