At 7am, while most of Dublin still sleeps, Nidia Portugal is already at work in her Rialto restaurant kitchen, hands deep in dough. She kneads together flour, sugar, butter, yeast and milk, working it into something between brioche and a cloud. This is the concha, Mexico’s most beloved sweet bread. It is soft and slightly sweet, its crisp sugar crust scored with a special cutter to create its shell-like pattern. By 1pm they are ready – golden, warm, perfect.
Portugal, along with Enrique Delangel, arrived from Mexico City in 2019 with no plans to stay, but they settled, worked and eventually took over The Rialto Bridge Café, first as managers, then as owners. At first glance the restaurant is something of a mirage. By day it’s a busy, covered outdoor spot for breakfast and brunch, but come Wednesday at 4pm it erupts into a blaze of Mexican colour. Birds and flowers adorn tablecloths; riotous reds, greens, yellows and blues radiate from central straw mats; and bright bows hang from the windows, as the low hum of conversation shifts to Spanish.
The menu comprises the food the couple were missing. Built on necessity and resourcefulness, Mexican street food takes simple, affordable ingredients and turns them into something deeply satisfying. A piece of fried dough, a handful of beans, pork slow-cooked until it collapses under its own weight – nothing is wasted. Every dish speaks to an understanding of how to make the most of what’s available. At its heart, this is food designed to be shared – quick, filling and made with the kind of care that turns a roadside snack into a staple of everyday life.
We start with a Michelada (€7.50), Mexico’s best excuse for drinking beer like a cocktail. The rim is thick with the red-orange hue of chamoy, that gloriously sweet-sour-spicy mess of pickled fruit, dried hibiscus and chilli, clinging to salt. The beer foams gently against the glass, lime snapping, hot sauce jolting – perfect with the sopes (€13.50). Three blue corn tortillas, hand-pressed and fried until just crisp, are topped with refried beans, crunchy lettuce, thick stripes of crema and a scattering of soft white cheese. Not the curds of queso fresco – you can’t get proper queso fresco in Ireland – but feta, which is similar but a bit stronger. Delangel is already planning to make his own.
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These are perfect just as they are, but better still with a heavy spoonful of salsa. The habanero is a fire-breathing beauty, made with blistered tomatoes, fresh habanero, garlic and coriander. It’s the kind of heat that builds, but never overwhelms. The morita is cooler and smokier, made with green tomatillos and jalapeño, with just enough punch for balance.
If you think a quesadilla is just a Tex-Mex grease trap oozing supermarket cheese, prepare for a revelation. Here, you will get Mexico City quesadillas (€14) – golden, crisp-edged and stuffed to bursting. In the rajas con queso, roasted jalapeños slump into molten cheese; the hongos (mushrooms) have an earthy intensity; and the slow-cooked pork belly of the chicharrón is unctuous and melting.
The pambazo (€14 for three) is something else entirely, a home-made bread roll, dipped in guajillo sauce, griddled until crisp, then stuffed with mashed potato, lettuce and crumbled cheese. Double carbs should be too much, but they aren’t. Nor are the other two options. The tinga de pollo is stuffed with soft strands of pulled chicken, and the deshebrado de res is rich with slow-cooked pulled beef.
Gorditas – plump corn cakes – are split open and stuffed with lettuce and crema. The frijol (€5) is filled with refried beans in chipotle sauce, a real winner, and the chicharrón (€6) is stuffed with slow-cooked pork belly.
And finally, the concha (€4), which is soft, lightly crisp on top, buttery without being heavy, the sugar shell just beginning to crumble as you tear it apart. It tastes of mornings in Mexico, with a cup of coffee, of a place that exists thousands of miles away, but feels impossibly close.
This is Chilangos. There’s no sleek branding, Instagram-ready tacos or mezcal cocktails named after Frida Kahlo. It is “garnacha” for homesick Mexicans, the street food that they eat after work, standing outside a stall with a plastic plate in one hand and a bottle of beer in the other. It is bold, tasty and unapologetically real, made by people who aren’t recreating Mexico, but living it.
Dinner for three with a cocktail and two beers was €80.
The Verdict: For Mexicans who are missing the taste of home.
Food provenance: Courtney Butchers’ chicken and pork, not free-range, Ballam, Blanco Niño and Freshpoint.
Vegetarian options: Gorditas with cheese, and with refried beans; quesadillas with mashed potato, and with mushrooms; sopes; pambazos; and tostadas.
Wheelchair access: Fully accessible with an accessible toilet.
Music: Bad Bunny, Jhayco and reggaeton.
