Food Review: El Camino Cantina opens in Manly
Newcomer El Camino Cantina blends its Tex-Mex menu with plenty of frozen margaritas and cold beers.
Come on down, it’s show time. After years of speculation and development, Manly Wharf’s new second-storey restaurant precinct opened its doors early November. With The Bavarian already on-site, Rockpool Dining Group simultaneously unveiled two very different brands, lively and casual El Camino Cantina and upmarket Japanese restaurant Sake.
According to group chief executive officer Thomas Pash, the Tex-Mex brand has proved such a winner that after the launch of original venue at The Rocks, Manly was just the place to deliver the same all over again.
El Camino’s props cupboard spells out party with a capital P. Nothing has been left out of the style box. Sombreros? Yes, and please wear them. Neon signs, illuminated niches filled with alternating cocktail glass and skulls, bare bricks, cactuses, surfing skeletons. It all works because the brand fills in the dots that join colourful kitsch without taking itself too seriously.
Add a playlist of rock, sport on TV screens, a rooftop terrace overlooking Manly Cove, complimentary corn chips and dips served straight from the trunk of a classic American automobile and summer’s just about sorted before it starts.
The menu blends classic Tex-Mex street food with specials and eats designed especially for Manly. Burritos are the bestseller, Pash said. Come for weekend brunch and there a breakfast burrito stuffed with scrambled eggs, chorizo, potatoes, bacon, American cheese and rocket ready and waiting.
Love tacos? Manly sure does, so make a point to come on Tuesday for the special $2 all-day deal. Manly’s first outing saw 800 covers and, as most people order four tacos each, that’s a lot of tacos.
The snack comes with nine different fillings including cheeseburger and black bean and hummus for vegetarians. Two seafood varieties - cilantro prawn on honey dressed cabbage, guacamole and fried leek and beer batter barramundi with green mango salsa and jalapeño aioli - are Manly specials.
If you like to do the hard work yourself, go for a delicious fajita like the hickory-smoked barbecued beef brisket. Half the fun is piling up the tender meat, pico de gallo, sour cream, grated cheese, sautéed onions and red capsicum in the house made chargrilled tortillas; the other half is eating it.
Enjoy them with a drink from the bar. El Camino serves 100 mezcals and tequilas, Mexican beers, wines and specialty cocktails. But it’s the legendary margaritas that really kick the party along.
Eight slushie machines churn out litres of this popular cocktail. It comes either on the rocks or frozen and in three imperial sizes. Standard is a perfectly acceptable 15 oz, the 24 oz is huge and but the daddy of them all is the massive two-litre tower to share with friends.
After a couple of frozen mango margaritas, you’ll be sharing those candy-coloured sombreros too. Get ready for some summer fun, amigos.
ESSENTIALS
The Verdict: 4/5
The Price: $63 with drinks
Details: El Camino Cantina, Manly Wharf, East Esplanade, Manly Open: Daily from 11am Bookings: 9259 5600
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