It’s the second dinner service at Maiz since it left King Street and reopened on Enmore Road. Everyone is all smiles: tables are full, staff are happy, food’s coming out of the kitchen at a steady clip, and the new room is looking great. The relief and pride is sketched all over co-owner and chef Juan Carlos Negrete Lopez’s face.
“Getting everything ready has been a lot,” he tells Broadsheet. “We’ve had the lease here since August, and since then we’ve been doubling up with the old space, getting this place ready while keeping the other one running. By Saturday night, after our first service, I went to bed, the adrenaline ran out, and all the energy just left my body.”
That’s the work ethic that’s taken Maiz from a stall at the Summer Hill market to a restaurant on King Street – and now this brand new spot on Enmore Road – in just a handful of years. And this latest incarnation feels like the clearest articulation yet of the kind of restaurant Maiz wants to be.
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SIGN UPAccording to Negrete Lopez, a big part of that is thanks to the design by Guru Projects. If you visited this space when it was Hartsyard – or, more recently, Irene’s – the general layout of the dining room will be familiar. There’s that Goldilocks size – small enough to be intimate and vibe-heavy with only a few guests; large enough that you could see yourself realistically getting a walk-in table if you timed it right – but the feel is very different. The warmly rendered ecru walls are illuminated in hearty detail by sconces, which also cast the Mexican masks hanging on the walls in stark relief. Banquettes upholstered in striped, earthy tones feature prominently, complemented nicely by simple red tiles and timber tables and chairs.
“I think a lot of customers, back when we were on King Street, were confused when they came because they felt like we were going to be a very casual street-food environment with cheap food,” Negrete Lopez says. “And there’s nothing wrong with that at all, it’s just not what we were trying to do.”
The brand new digs resolve that incongruence, but the menu is largely the same. As the name suggests, Maiz is still, first and foremost, about corn and the myriad ways Mexican cuisine pays tribute to the culture’s lodestar ingredient. Sopes, huaraches, tamales, tortillas, tostadas and totopos – if it’s corn-based (and isn’t a taco), it’s likely to be on the menu in some way. And inclusion isn’t limited to the savoury side of things – corn cake and blue corn cookies are two stars of the dessert menu.
Highlights include the esquites – a sweet corn soup in a broth of epazote (a strong, minty herb), topped with seven-chilli mayo – or the triangular tetela de temporada pockets with confit fennel and braised cactus. If most terms on the menu are unfamiliar to you, the attractively priced set menus, available for both vegetarians and omnivores, are a good idea. So is Tostada Tuesday, which stars the crunchy, open-faced cousins of tacos, as well as “machetes” – 40-centimetre-long quesadillas stuffed with the likes of grilled skirt steak done norteño (northern) style, adobo-marinated chorizo and confit garlic prawns. These are as large as they sound and will comically dwarf your table.
Maiz’s new home has a bigger focus on drinks. The in-house beer – made for Maiz by Yulli’s and starring corn as the hero ingredient, of course – is a big hit, as are the five Margaritas on the menu (which can all be made spicy on request). The signature cocktails all nod to classic Mexican flavours like hibiscus, while the considered spirits list – which includes mezcals and tequilas alongside lesser-known drinks such as sotol and raicilla – is another highlight. There’s also a tight line-up of wines, including a number of Mexican drops imported by Negrete Lopez’s brother.
Moving a restaurant, even down the road, is tough to pull off. But Maiz has made the transition look effortless, moving the concept forward with considerable warmth and maturity. Here’s to a long life at its new home.
Maiz
33 Enmore Road, Newtown
0466 077 804
Hours:
Tue to Fri 5pm–9pm
Sat midday–3pm, 5pm–9.30pm