First Look: Brunswick’s Mercadito Is a Taqueria and Cocktail Bar for Right Now

When Bruno Carreto opened his Brunswick taqueria Los Hermanos in 2012, Melbourne was in the middle of a Mexican restaurant boom. Hot Listed Mamasita had been open for two years, and fast-casual Mexican-ish chain Fonda, which opened its first location in 2011, was just starting to grow. 

At the tail end of 2025, as we saw another Mexican wave sweep Melbourne – with pozole finding new fans, wedding mole landing in the CBD and chilaquiles becoming easier to find – Carreto collaborated with Simon Rizk on new venue Mercadito Cocteleria & Taqueria.

A 12-minute walk from Los Hermanos, Mercadito is intentionally calmer and more intimate than the Victoria Street spot, which, in addition to being home to one of the city’s best fish tacos, is known for its loud atmosphere and occasional bar-top dancing. “We don’t want two venues doing the same thing within a few kilometres of each other,” Carreto says. 

He’s noticed a shift in the city’s relationship with Mexican food since Los Hermanos opened and worked with Rizk to design the new cocktail bar and taqueria accordingly. “Melbourne’s education in tacos has grown a lot,” he says. “For years, everyone was trying to be the best Mexican street food. Now people know what good tacos taste like, they’ve travelled, they’ve eaten a lot and I think they’re ready for something more.”

Carreto, who was born in Mexico and moved to Australia at age seven, spent a month last July travelling through the country on a research trip, moving between Mexico City, Oaxaca and the coast. “I needed fresh things on the menu that weren’t [at] Los [Hermanos],” he says. Carreto, who is back in the kitchen for the first time in eight years, returned with a menu anchored in classics but broadened with dishes Melbourne rarely sees. Signatures are the ceviche, aguachile and a Christmas-season staple: bacalao. The dish sees Norwegian cod desalted for 48 hours, then cooked slowly with tomatoes, garlic, olives, pine nuts, potatoes and chillies. “It’s a dish that reminds me of family,” Carreto says. “Most Mexicans eat it at Christmas or special occasions – and the most exciting part is no one’s really done it here.”

Tacos, including barbacoa tacos and tacos al pastor made with slow-roasted pork, feature. But rather than come ready-to-eat, they’re served like they are at the Mexican taquerias Carreto visited: hot tortillas, salsa and fillings arrive on the table and diners assemble their own.

Rizk (who previously owned cafe Dood 328) oversees the bar program, which mirrors the food menu’s philosophy: specialist, thoughtful and deliberately unfussy. Herradura Plata tequila is the house pour, supported by Fortaleza and a growing mezcal selection. 

“It’s not about having a hundred bottles,” Rizk says. “Every tequila has to be a banger. We want the team to be able to talk about agave properly, like tequila, mezcal, sotol, bacanora – the whole journey.” Cocktails include a Blood Orange and Hibiscus Margarita, a Watermelon Mezcalita, and a café de olla (Mexican spiced coffee)-inspired Espresso Martini.

Low lighting, warm timber, a quieter soundtrack and a more refined menu set the tone from the moment you walk in. Mercadito’s not a second Los Hermanos, but a considered counterpoint that reflects wider changes in Melbourne’s Mexican food scene. “It’s still a taqueria, it’s still authentic, it’s still drawing on all the things that you get in Mexico, but there’s a cocktail bar, there’s vinyl. It’s trying to tick all the Melbourne boxes too, without diluting who we are.”  

Mercadito Cocteleria & Taqueria
625 Sydney Road, Brunswick
(03) 9969 7838

Hours:
Tue to Thu 5.30pm–midnight
Fri & Sat 5.30pm–1am

mercadito.com.au
@mercadito3056