El Primo Sanchez is not a bar for everyone, but gee, it is fun

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I would like to publicly apologise to anyone within a five-metre radius of El Primo Sanchez’s karaoke room around sunset three Saturday nights ago. That was an awful version of Sweet Child O’ Mine.

I would also like to apologise to my dining companions for insisting we try, and get through, all the house cocktails (there are a lot), and ask forgiveness from the chef for skipping the natilla custard with mezcal flambé ($16) because we ordered way too many tacos.

In short, sorry to everyone. Gee, it was a bit of fun, though.

El Primo is a sharp, slick and slightly swanky Mexican bar which opened on Oxford Street in the last week of February. Pumping high-fidelity booze and tunes inside a 1940s corner hotel (once the Rose, Shamrock & Thistle), it’s the first partnership between the owners of cocktail bar Maybe Sammy (that always-packed prestige gin joint near The Rocks) and Public Hospitality Group, which bought the site in 2021.

It’s such a riot of colour and sound, I feel like I need a few minutes of sensory deprivation afterwards.

It’s not a quiet place. Enter through the old pub doors and you’re hit with an explosion of canary yellow, mustard, vivid oranges and royal blue as lights in a recessed ceiling pulse and change colour. Well-drilled staff shake margaritas and dance to modern salsa. I count 14 disco balls above the DJ booth, but there may be more. My favourite part is the “¡Emergencia! Press for tequila” button in the two-person karaoke booth, which is available for short sessions.

We slap it and two shots ($27) are delivered between Creep and Jackson. (Again, apologies to the nearby tables. I’m told the room is soundproof, but insulation must have its limits.)

Pre-Radiohead, we kick off with fatty, spicy, whipped ’nduja surrounded by potato chips and topped with creme fraiche and chives ($18). Tasty stuff, albeit thoroughly rich – wedges, sour cream and sweet chilli for a new generation.

Naturally, there’s also tortilla chips and guacamole ($16), spiffed up with lightly fermented slices of green tomato and a toasty, house-made chilli sauce. With more lime and acid, it could be a knockout dish.

Chef Alejandro Huerta’s brief seems to be playful but elevated Mexican favourites, and he nails it with tuna tostadas (three for $22) featuring diced grapefruit-pink fish enhanced by a koji-fermented habanero mayonnaise of enormous flavour. There’s wasabi leaf and pickled turnip on top, too, but it’s all about that mayo.

Most tacos are $12 each and, considering El Primo’s staffing and fit-out costs and the quality of ingredients, I’ll go in to bat for that price. Plus, the chicken carnitas taco is so filling you could probably eat two and call it a day: juicy, boisterously spiced meat, all shredded and tangled and covered with jalapeno salsa, avocado and crisp-fried chicken skin.

Only the roasted Brussels sprout taco ($11) falls flat, largely thanks to a ricotta-like, hazelnut “cheese” which has an uncanny knack for smothering every other flavour it touches. You can probably skip the wild mushroom quesadilla ($16), too, which features real Oaxaca cheese, but needs proper seasoning.

Full marks, though, to muscular tiger prawns licked with flames and chilli butter (three for $38), and kudos to the dry-aged sirloin ($45) basted in mole de olla – a type of beefy Mexican soup – with crunchy, corkscrew-shaped fries ($11) on the side.

You could order a serviceable La Boca malbec ($14/$68) from Argentina at this point, sure, but I say embrace the Hog’s Breath silliness of those chips with a Charro Negro highball ($22) of tequila, smoked cola and lime. Fun!

The cocktails are mostly brilliant and tequila-based, by the way – even the espresso martini ($22) replaces vodka with Patron. After extensive investigation, I can especially recommend the bang-on Primo Margarita ($24) or Sanchez Paloma ($22) featuring tequila, lime and agave syrup, and mandarin soda so zesty it could be sherbet.

This is not a bar for everyone. At the time of writing, you can’t book. The merchandise list is longer than the beer selection. Perhaps you would just like a standard gin negroni, thanks very much, and not “our version of” with tequila or mezcal.

Did I mention it can get loud? Heck, I’m not even sure it’s a bar for me. It’s such a riot of colour and sound, I feel like I need a few minutes of sensory deprivation afterwards.

However, I return a week later, suspecting we missed a trick by not ordering that Spanish custard dessert. Apologies this time to my wife for eating way more than my fair share. (But good golly, it was delicious.)

This review was originally published in Good Weekend magazine