Did you hear the one about the chef who opened her first restaurant and excitedly wrote a menu with sauteed livers and crickets on toast? It was her dream! Problem was, potential customers found those dishes a bit too daring and steered clear. It’s an age-old tale: running a restaurant means balancing owner ambition and diner desire. Smart players find middle ground, build trust and hope their version of offal and insects will work down the track.

The Bar Tobala version of the story is a happy one. Anthony and Frankie Jayasekera spent last year building their venue on a busy corner in Pascoe Vale South. They had planned a daytime place serving tortas (Mexican-style sandwiches).

For more than a decade, the Melbourne couple has been spending months at a time in Oaxaca, shopping at markets for indigenous Mexican herbs such as hoja santa and chillies such as prized pasilla mixe, then cooking up a storm. They had a vision. But locals wandering by weren’t short of opinions. Sandwiches? No. We need somewhere for date nights, they said.

And they got it. Bar Tobala is an easy evening hangout for cocktails and Mexican snacks with cosy booths for daters and friendly catch-ups. Contemporary Mexican art prints line the walls and colourful finishes in timber, tile and laminate give the place a casual but celebratory feel.

Anthony Jayasekera is a barman from way back. He’s channelled an enduring obsession with tequila and mezcal to create some of the finest cocktails I’ve had for a while.

The Part Time Friend is made with Alma Tepec, an agave spirit that includes that smoke-dried pasilla mixe along with amaro and lemon. It’s a smoky, citrusy, sexy sipper.

Motel Tan is more upbeat, with passionfruit, mezcal, yuzushu and limoncello: somehow the mix of Mexico, Japan and Italy resolves into a top Tiki-type tipple.

The food is catching up to the finesse of the cocktails. Stracciatella divorciados is a riff on “divorced eggs”, a breakfast dish of two eggs separated on the plate by beans and garnished with distinct dollops of red and green salsa.

The stracciatella version sees milky fresh cheese underpinning a threesome gone wrong: black garlic chilli oil (a Mexican-ish version of chilli crisp), green tomatillo salsa and poached tomato are “divorced” when the plate hits the table. You can reconcile them in tasty swirls with freshly fried totopos (corn chips).

Of course, there are tacos. The jackfruit tinga is a vegetarian version of pulled pork, flavoured with morita chilli and charred onion. Kingfish tostaditas are a tasty pile of cured fish and poblano chilli crema (like sour cream).

Bar Tobala is a happy place that is only going to get better as it beds down, bringing love to the neighbourhood and feeling the joy.