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Kiss me. Kiss me a lot. Besame Mucho, composed by Consuelo Velazquez in 1941, is one of the most popular boleros (love songs) in the world. It is, of course, playing at the newly opened Nu’u restaurant and mezcal bar in Glebe. It is playing at every Mexican restaurant, let’s face it.

But that is the one and only predictable thing about Nu’u. Because Nu’u isn’t just Mexican, it’s Oaxacan (pronounced “wahacan”). Any cuisine in the world will get more interesting when you drill down to its regions and their specialities, especially when it’s a lesser-known, Pacific-facing southern Mexican region such as this.

Normally, we can hum along to a Mexican menu with its classic and staple dishes, but these are new melodies to many of us: tetela, toloache, memela and enmolada. Executive chef Manuel Diaz, who is co-owner with his wife Diana Farrera, grew up in Oaxaca and cheffed at both Santa Catarina and Bar Patron since arriving in Australia. He’s proud of his rich and nutty and almost chocolatey moles, blending dried chillies, nuts, seeds and plantains into thick, nicely balanced sauces that beat an ancient drum.

They are a natural fit with mezcal, the smoky agave spirit that fuels Oaxacan culture. If straight-up is too much of a challenge, start on one of Farrera’s Mezcalina cocktails, each designed to highlight the flavour profile of a different species of maguey (agave), and named for remarkable Oaxacan women. The super-smoky Maria Sabina ($23), for instance, named for a famous healer, brings together cucumber, ginger, basil and lemon with smoked rosemary in a very restorative way.

Normally, we can hum along to a Mexican menu with its classic and staple dishes, but these are new melodies to many of us.

Having already opened Nativo, a little taqueria in Pyrmont in 2022, the pair decided it was time to get serious about the food of their native state. The modest fit-out shows smart use of a compact space, with the kitchen taking up most of the ground floor, a little terrace out back, and narrow stairs leading to a first floor dining room with balcony.

Diaz has a nice touch with presentation, building dishes on moles, grating queso fresco on top, and strewing them with flor de calabaza (in this case, zucchini flowers). An enmolada ($19) of two corn tortillas rolled around marinated, grilled and shredded chicken is thick, chewy and satisfying, with its caramelised onion, dark mole sauce and watercress.

The toloache ($26) ceviche is as wonderfully sharp as sucking a lime, the cucumber-green dressing refreshing a rubble of diced prawn, barra and snapper. A small square of rich, fatty pork belly with admirably crisp crackling ($26), is accented with grilled – well, charred – peaches, and an underpinning of cured mole.

Better is the signature dish of memela del mercado ($22) in which marrow beans and pulled pork shoulder sit as a tower on a thick round of grilled, moulded maize dough sporting leafy greens, zucchini flowers, and quesa fresca. But whoever sends out the ensalada del huerto ($12) needs to check the cos leaf ends for browning first.

The cleanest flavours come in a plate of ejotes ($12), snappy, lightly smoked green beans tossed with crumbled house-made chorizo sausage, which is pretty good in its own right. It sings.

Desserts are simple enough. A humble market-inspired gaznate ($18) is a crisp pastry cornetto filled with sweet guava puree, meringue, quince and Oaxacan cheese.

Things to like include the mezcalinas, well-made and balanced introductions to the richly diverse world of mezcal; and the way in which everything is made by hand, the old way.

Things to hope for include the service settling into a better rhythm (I’m asked for an order before seeing a menu, and need to request napkins, cutlery and plates). And that every meal could finish as it did here, with a tiny carved bowl (jicara) of mezcal. “We have a saying in Oaxaca, that you don’t drink the mezcal, you kiss it,” they say. Ha! Besame mucho.