“We’re not restaurateurs,” says Luke Miller, one half of the team that’s opened Chica Bonita on Clarence Street in the city.

It’s a funny thing to say considering he and business partner Sean Miller (mates, not related) do a roaring trade at the Mexican eatery’s seven-year-old Manly location, as well as at Sunset Sabi, their Japanese venue. They’re also opening an Italian restaurant in Manly next month.

The pair is chatting to Broadsheet, sitting side by side in one of the tan-velvet booths that make up the vast terracotta and white dining room at their new digs. It’s early morning but the large central kitchen is already pumping out incredible aromas as they prepare for a soft opening. “I mean, knowledge of hospitality doesn’t come as second nature,” he says. “We’ve learned from the people around us.”

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They may not have a traditional hospitality background – before Chica Bonita Luke was a construction project manager and Sean was in advertising – but they have a knack for it, and a knack for picking good people. One of those good people is chef Alejandro Huerta, who is running the new kitchen.

“Alejandro was due to move back to Mexico but the guys at Melbourne’s La Tortilleria were adamant we meet him, so we flew down and he cooked for us,” Luke says. “What he did in that tiny apartment was phenomenal. We walked away thinking, ‘What a great person. Look what he can do in a small space. He’s got to be our guy,” says Sean.

Huerta has a talent for modernising classic Mexican food and marrying it with Australian ingredients, and the results are delightful and surprising. Take his nopales (“no-pah-lays”), or cactus. Huerta pickles the cactus and serves it with burrata and milk infused with lemon myrtle. Each bite offers a new flavour. First you get the tangy cactus, then the creamy burrata followed by the gentle lemon-infused milk.

The pork belly, slow-cooked and deep-fried until crisp, is served with molé. It comes with an incredible fermented kale and topped with slightly bitter warrigal greens.

Molé, which is usually made by mixing chillies, nuts, seeds, vegetables and sometimes unsweetened chocolate, tomatoes and raisins, is a very famous Mexican dish and here its complexity is achieved through a long list of ingredients and the use of a “mother”, not dissimilar to how it’s made in Mexico City’s most famous fine-dining restaurant Pujole. “Alejandro saves a little of the original molé to add to the new one, a little like a mother for sourdough, or a master stock,” Sean says.

There are also tacos. Our picks are the fish with creamy mayo, lime coriander and fresh cabbage, and the chorizo with potato, caramelised onion and queso fresco (a crumbly, feta-like cheese).

Huerta’s alegria (happiness) dessert is a tribute to family. “Alegria is a typical amaranth and honey candy in Mexico. My mum loved the vanilla, my grandfather loved the chocolate.” Chica Bonita’s version has both, served on milk foam with puffed cereals and finished with candied orange peel.

At the Manly Chica Bonita (“pretty girl”), the drink of choice is a Margarita, but for a CBD crowd the Millers think the wine list, which features drops from Mexico, California and Australia, will do well.

The whole place is likely to do well because there is definitely room in Sydney for interesting, modern and well-executed Mexican food. “We’re not Mexican, but we’ve got the people who can bring the realness to it,” says Sean. “We just want things to taste really fucking delicious.”

Chica Bonita
156 Clarence Street, Sydney

Hours:
Mon to Sat 4.30pm–late

chicabonita.com.au

This article first appeared on Broadsheet on April 2, 2019. Menu items may have changed since publication.