Barrio Comida

Food ✪✪✪✪
Ambience ✪✪✪✪
Service ✪✪✪✪✪

34 Church Street
Durham
DH1 3DG

0191 370 9688

barriocomida.com 

Accessibility? Yes
Gluten free options? Yes 

 

I normally spend a few days looking forward to a meal out. Always with optimism, you understand - I'm a glass half full kind of guy (especially when the restaurant has a decent wine list). 

Sometimes the anticipation extends to a couple of weeks, certainly if it’s somewhere a bit fancier. You’re only talking months when it’s some gastro-palace with more chefs than punters, or an up-and-comer that threatens to smash up a paradigm or two. So if I tell you that I had been looking forward to eating at the new Barrio Comida for about two and half years, understand that this was a meal shouldering an awful lot of expectation.

Mexico 70

Food ✪✪✪✪ 
Ambience ✪✪✪✪ 
Service ✪✪✪✪ 

312 High Street West 
Sunderland 
SR1 3ET 

Accessibility? Yes 
Gluten free? Yes

No phone number 
facebook.com/mexico70sunderland 
  

It’s fair to say that my dispatches from the front line of the Sunderland restaurant scene haven’t always been popular with the locals. 

“Get out and stay out” has been the general tenor of the comments hurled at my efforts. I was once called an “aching ballbag of a man”, after what I think was actually a moderately positive review of I forget where. Last time out I was accused on Facebook of trying to destroy the city, which even I would suggest is overstating the influence of my reviews just a tad. 

When, on an upcoming trip to Wearside, I asked Twitter where I should try, one friendly local instructed me to “Don’t bother if you are only going to slag off the city like last time!!!” 

This whole thing is, of course, a complete misunderstanding. I bear no ill will towards the Mackems’ fair city. Quite the opposite. Some of my best friends support Sunderland. Well, one or two. It is entirely in this spirit of comradeship that I have occasionally wondered in print how it can be possible for nearly 300,000 people to be so poorly served by the hospitality industry. Don’t shoot the messenger and all that. 

So, it is from precisely that same sense of solidarity that I take so much pleasure in declaring that I’ve finally found somewhere in Sunderland's city centre that I am delighted to wholeheartedly recommend. And thanks to so many on Twitter who suggested it.

Chucho's Tacos

Food ✪✪✪✪ 
Ambience ✪✪✪ 
Service ✪✪✪ 

36 Acorn Road 
Jesmond 
NE2 2DJ 

07716 562 684 

Accessibility? No 
Gluten free? Yes  

facebook.com/chuchostacos

Haggis is one of my favourite things. I enjoy it in all its guises, from the best (Hendersons’ of Castle Douglas is a bit spesh) to the less fabulous (tinned, from Aldi - it was a gift). I like it prepared traditionally (oven, bit of water in the tin, cover with foil, accompanied by good single malt whisky and a set of bagpipes) or à l’écossais (battered, plunged into a vat of roiling oil until it floats, garnished with chips and Rennies on the side). 

But, for all my not insubstantial experience of this product, never had I been served it with a wedge of lime. Not until I tried Chucho’s Haggis Taco.

El Paso

Food ✪✪ 
Ambience ✪✪✪ 
Service ✪✪✪✪ 

61 Osborne Road 
Jesmond 
Newcastle upon Tyne 
NE2 2AN 

0191 240 7777 
www.elpasojesmond.co.uk 

Accessibility? Yes 
Gluten free? Yes 

I am not so completely naive or romantic as to believe that all restaurants should make every single item from scratch. Some things that come in jars or cans are perfectly reasonable additions to the larder. A local baker may be turning out loaves that are so good you’d be daft not to buy them in; I've been served bought-in tiramisu that has made me cry (admittedly made by an ancient Sardinian in the next village, but bought-in nonetheless). But at some point the opening of a packet becomes an expression not of sensible economy but old-fashioned laziness. If you claim to be a Mexican restaurant, that packet is the one that contains corn tortillas.

Taco Bell

Food ✪ 
Ambience ✪ 
Service ✪ 

84 Grainger Street 
Newcastle upon Tyne 
NE1 5JQ 

0191 230 1309 

Accessibility? Yes 
Gluten free? No
www.tacobelluk.co.uk 

Sometimes, after dishing out a bunch of stars to the worthy, or more often withholding them from places that think their customers are mugs, I’m asked about my judging criteria: how can I review both upscale Michelin-starred restaurants and down at home diners? Am I biased against chains and faster food in favour of fine dining and independent restaurants? 

Well, to be honest, I do prefer my meal to be cooked by a real chef, rather than arrive pre-prepped in a catering van; a homemade scotch egg of runny yolk and loose, well seasoned forcemeat will always trump one of those tight, orange-crumbed supermarket jobs. But to my mind, if a place calls itself a fish and chip shop it ought to be able to offer good batter and fresh fish; a burger place should stand or fall on its burgers; and when a place calls itself a taco house, it ought to really know how to make tacos.

Stack Newcastle

Food ✪✪✪ 
Ambience ✪✪ 
Service ✪✪✪✪ 
(Sushi me Rollin’ were lovely) 

Stack Newcastle 
Old Odeon Site 
Pilgrim Street 
Newcastle upon Tyne 
NE1 6QE 

0191 216 1415 

www.stacknewcastle.com 

Accessibility? Yes 
Gluten free? Some 

Honestly, it’s a wonder that there are any shipping containers left for the ships. When Riley’s Fish Shack and Anna Hedworth’s Cookhouse used a couple apiece to open their businesses it had just a whiff of underground cool and felt a bit edgy. When By The River Brew Co opened up earlier this year it was as if the whole “not quite permanent” concept had been weaponised, to very good effect. 

With the advent of Stack, on the site of the former Odeon Cinema, shipping containers have gone full-blown mainstream. Give it a couple of years and we’ll all be living, working and loving in shipping containers. Watch out, Maersk.

Loca

Food ✪✪ 
Ambience ✪✪✪ 
Service ✪ 

46-50 South Parade 
Whitley Bay 
NE26 2RQ 

0191 252 4040 

Accessibility? Yes 
Gluten free? Yes

www.locawhitleybay.com 

As the rejuvenation of Whitley Bay continues apace, it’s turned into a town of contradictions. For every lumbering hulk of a closed down sea-front hotel, a minimalist craft beer bottle shop pops up. For every gorgeously restored Spanish City dome there is a hyper-grim bricks and neon Premier Inn and Beefeater. A walk through the town centre finds zeitgeisty shops and restaurants cheek by jowl with the naff and the knackered. 

It seems apt then that our meal at Loca, a “Latin American” newcomer on South Parade, should have been so full of contrast in quality and variable service.

Barrio Comida (CLOSED)

Food ✪✪✪✪ 
Ambience ✪✪✪✪✪ 
Service ✪✪✪✪ 

Wesley Square 
Newcastle upon Tyne 
NE1 3DE 

No telephone number
No bookings 

www.barriocomida.com 

[Barrio Comida closed its doors for the last time in December 2017.  They're now looking for a permanent venue, and hoped to reopen in 2018 - their website now says they'll be opening in Durham "in the Spring of 2019"]

As Mrs Diner and I wandered along the Quayside, reflections of the Sage Gateshead and the Millennium Bridge all twinkly in the ink-pool Tyne, I must admit I was genuinely excited. Over the last few years, the fates and my diary had somehow conspired to prevent me from visiting any of Shaun Hurrell’s Barrio Comida pop-ups, so the news that he was moving into Adam Riley’s fish shack on the Quayside was very welcome indeed. 

This is the converted shipping container with the second best view in the world (the best being the outlook from Riley’s fish shack in Tynemouth). Anticipation can be the enemy of enjoyment, but in this case it was well placed.

Cabana

Food ✪✪ 
Ambience ✪✪ 
Service ✪✪✪✪ 

117 Newgate Street 
Newcastle upon Tyne 
NE1 5RF 

0191 261 2425 
www.cabana-brasil.com 

As I tap out these words, we find ourselves bang slap in the middle of a hefty old summer of sports. The English football team outdid themselves, managing to fall well short of even our most modest expectations; Andy Murray kept us on the edge of our seats (you can tell I’m writing this before he either fails or triumphs this Sunday); and, as if that wasn’t exciting enough, the Olympic Games are just a month away. 

Mrs Diner and I decided to try and get ourselves in the Olympic spirit by having dinner in Rio. Well, actually the Secret Diner’s budget is a bit stretched this month, so we made do with a new “Brasilian Barbecue” restaurant called Cabana, in the former Co-op building on Newcastle’s Newgate Street. It’s a chain – they’ve opened ten of these places across the UK. Based on this experience, I have no idea why.

Viva Brazil (CLOSED)

Food ✪✪✪ 
Service ✪✪✪ 
Ambience ✪✪✪ 

42-50 Grey Street 
Newcastle upon Tyne 
NE1 6AE 

0191 260 3533 
www.vivabrazilrestaurants.com 

“Let me tell you about our concept - we’re different to other restaurants!” 

So began a tableside lecture that lasted long enough for me to begin to question whether actually being fed was part of the concept. I zoned out halfway through, assuming that I’d be able to negotiate the rest of the evening without this primer. 

Our server soldiered on through her script. Several times she mentioned the phrase “accept the meat”. 

Accepting the meat is the whole point of a Churrascaria. This Brazilian tradition has been around in Britain for a few years so I’m surprised it’s taken so long to reach the one city that really understands all-you-can-eat. Or, in this case, all-you-can-meat.

Las Iguanas

Chimichanga

Food ✪✪ 
Ambience ✪✪✪✪✪ 
Service ✪✪✪✪✪ 

Mon-Thu 12 – 11pm 
Fri-Sat 12 - 11:30pm 
Sun 12 - 10:30pm 

62-74 Grey Street, 
Newcastle Upon Tyne
NE1 6AF 0191 232 9729 
www.iguanas.co.uk/locations/newcastle 


[NOTE: Original review 2013.  Re-visited 2017 and downgraded to ✪✪]

When Eren Ali bought his landlady’s failing Italian restaurant in Bristol he wanted a new concept in eateries. He chose Latin American, but because Mexican food, though simple and comforting, wasn’t terribly cool, he added a touch of Brazil. 

That was back in 1991. Now Las Iguanas is one of the UK’s most successful restaurant chains, and Latin American food has become very cool indeed. Eren Ali was way ahead of his time, and his concept has made him millions.