On Tuesday, September 16, Notting Hill’s award-winning cocktail bar Viajante87 will once again transform itself into a portal for Latin American culture. The occasion: The Culture Exchange, the bar’s ongoing supperclub series that invites the great chefs and bartenders of the Americas to cook, shake, and tell their country’s stories through flavor. This latest installment coincides with Mexican Independence Day and promises to be one of the series’ most evocative yet.
The night will be led by two names carrying the weight of Mexico’s contemporary food-and-drink renaissance: Chef Fernando Martínez of Migrante in Mexico City and Eli Martínez Bello, co-owner of Tlecān, ranked No.20 in The World’s 50 Best Bars 2024. The duo will bring both kitchen and bar into play, creating a dialogue between dish and cocktail that feels less like pairing and more like a cultural duet.
A Supperclub Steeped in Mexican Tradition
Viajante87 reopened in September 2023 with a clear mission: to collapse the borders between travelogue and dining room. Its team had spent half a year wandering through Latin America, notebook and shaker in hand, cataloguing not just recipes but rituals, stories, the things that make a meal or a drink inseparable from place. The Culture Exchange emerged from that pilgrimage — a way to repay hospitality with hospitality.
For this night, Fernando Martínez will bring his personal culinary philosophy to London: a tightrope act balancing traditional Mexican flavors with Japanese and Asian influences. Born in Michoacán, raised in Mexico City, his food has been described as both soulful and boundary-pushing. The four-course menu reads like a manifesto:
- Amaebi shrimp tartare with sea urchin harissa, passion fruit, spicy cantaloupe, and caviar.
- Dry-aged fish dressed in salsa macha and yuzu beurre blanc with mussels, local herbs, and salicornia emulsion.
- Charred kombu-cured venison layered with cacao, black tea, agave honey, and fermented cherries, crowned with habanero chocolate.
- Sour caramel cake with tangerine, miso toffee, popcorn praline, and cacao flower ice cream.
Cocktails by One of Mexico’s Leading Voices in Mezcal
If the dishes form one half of the experience, the drinks supply the other. Eli Martínez Bello has built her reputation not only as a bartender but as a cultural advocate, intent on showing the depth and breadth of mezcal’s possibilities. For the London audience, she has collaborated with Viajante87’s team to create bespoke cocktails designed to move in harmony with Martínez’s cooking.
All will feature The Lost Explorer Mezcal and tequila — spirits produced in Oaxaca with traditional methods, multi-award-winning in their category, and expressive of agave’s natural wildness. Expect smoke, spice, and subtlety; expect the palate to be guided through the Mexican terroir without leaving a West London street.
The Night Beyond Dinner
The dinner runs from 6pm to 9pm, after which Eli will take over the bar until 1am for a guest shift. Those unable to secure seats at the table can still drink in the spirit of the night: mezcal-forward cocktails crafted by one of the most influential bartenders working today.
Previous Culture Exchange events have welcomed Latin America’s culinary leaders — SubAstor, Florería Atlántico, Alquímico, Niño Gordo, and more. This Mexican edition feels particularly resonant: Independence Day not as a static commemoration but as a living, breathing expression, poured and plated.
Tickets are £85 for four courses with cocktail pairings. Reservations for the Viajante87 Mexican Independence Day celebration are essential, so head over to the bar’s website to make them.
