With a population of 22 million people from around the world, Mexico City (or CDMX as it’s colloquially known) is a culinary melting pot. Chef Ross McCombe spent seven years immersing himself in the hospitality landscape there before returning home to Australia.
He’s heading up Southbank restaurant Hacienda, a new project from Highgate One, the company behind Hawthorn’s Osteria 20 and Richmond’s Ella. And he’s got a team of Mexico City locals with him.
“We’re not doing the sombreros,” says manager Gianni Monti, who grew up in CDMX before moving to Perth in 2009. “We’re doing what’s currently trending in Mexico City. That’s our point of difference.”
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SIGN UPMcCombe still operates two taquerias in CDMX and another two in Bangkok that pair traditional Mexican flavours with the Asian influences he grew up with in Australia.
“It's really similar, it’s like chilli, salt and lime, so it works really well,” he says.
The influence carries through at Hacienda, which channels traditional Mexican flavours with a subtle international edge, though McCombe has moved away from tacos in favour of a share-style menu inspired by La Docena, a popular raw bar in CDMX.
The Cold Bar section of the menu is dedicated to seafood, though probably not as you know it. Oysters come with black (dried) lime and sesame mole. Queensland mud crab cooked in brown butter is served on house-made tostadas.
Larger dishes include lechon (suckling pig) with apple pico de gallo, sherry jus and a peanut mole made from around 30 ingredients; clay-baked beetroot with cashew mole, almond cream and Mexican-style fresh cheese; and beef rump cap with green peppercorn chimichurri. Each is served with a pocket of fresh soft corn tortillas, also made in-house in the restaurant’s front window.
“I need to make my own tortillas,” says McCombe. “I think everyone in the kitchen hates me at the moment.”
The team use a machine to help expedite the dough-rolling process a bit, but the masa (corn dough) is painstakingly prepared from scratch using ground nixtamalised corn (a traditional process where the kernels are soaked in an alkaline solution to enhance digestibility).
The drinks were developed by Ramón Tovar, who also runs Nardo Cocktail Club and Long Story Short in CDMX. At Hacienda, he’s focusing on agave-based spirits from around Mexico including, but not limited to, tequila and mezcal. There’s also raicilla, made from roasted agave; sotol, made from a grass that’s in the agave family; and bacanora, made exclusively from agave Pacifica.
“Agave spirits are very much like wine. They’re very expressive of terroir,” Monti says. “Not only in terms of climate, but the people and the communities that are around it have different ways of processing that plant into a spirit. That’s what we really want to showcase.”
You can take your spirit neat or in cocktails like the Frida, which mixes tequila blanco, sweet potato shrub, pineapple shrub, rhubarb liqueur, cocoa foam and Origanum, a blend of oregano tequila, Frangelico and lime.
The space hasn’t changed much structurally since it operated as Italian restaurant Tutto Bene, but Ben Fretard helped redesign the interiors with Mexican folk sculptures and accents of red neon. In the coming months, the team will add an open-air mezzanine, and there are plans to have a raw bar and host tequila masterclasses.
Hacienda
M28/3 Southgate Avenue, Southbank
(03) 9826 4939
Hours
Mon to Sun 12pm–late
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