Find the cinema marquee. It spells CINCO in lights above Stoke Newington Road, and under it a staircase drops into a low, candlelit cellar with an open fireplace full of candles and a ceiling covered in small Mexican trinkets. The smell of wood and spice drifts up the stairs on the way down. It is the sort of entrance that makes upstairs feel like a different postcode.
The people upstairs
Daniel Corrochio, born in Guadalajara, and Amy McQuarrie ran a pop-up at The Bluecoats in Tottenham before opening Corrochio's as a restaurant in 2021, in this very basement. When they took over the old Turkish supermarket above and moved the cooking up to street level, the cellar was free. CINCO opened there in March 2025. The room was once Ruby's, which is Dalston all over: a basement never retires, it just changes jackets. No head bartender is named in anything published so far. The menu does the talking.
“It treats a whole country's drinks cabinet as worth exploring, not just its most famous bottle.”
The room and the crowd
Bare brick, dimmed lights, Mexican artwork the couple gathered on their travels. It will feel familiar to east London's former late-night regulars, now with better manners and a reservation. It suits two people, or four who are happy to lean in. Opening days are Wednesday to Saturday, and bookings run through the Corrochio's website.
The passport
The menu is an embroidered passport made with the Mexican artist Cactus Studio, in three sections of five: agave cocktails, drinks built on Mexico's other spirits, and low and no-alcohol. Hence the name.
Read the middle section first. El Tejate takes Abasolo corn whisky, fat-washed with corn and butter, then adds a bitter aperitif, Nixta corn liqueur and crème de cacao. Also worth a look is the Gibson, built on Mexican gin with nectarine. In the agave section, El Guapo is espadín mezcal and vermouth with orange liqueur, achiote, mango, chilli, oregano, bay leaf and a citrus shrub. El Papatzul is a tepache of fermented apple and pear, spiked with calvados, served in a tankard with Oaxacan grasshoppers beside it. The grasshoppers are optional. The tankard is not.
Order El Padresito first. It is a Mexican answer to the Penicillin: Pensador espadín mezcal, a house-made ginger and honey liqueur, lemon and honeycomb, served short and strong. For the driver, La Netita mixes Almave with chilli syrup, coriander, mint and pineapple.
The bottle with the pineapple
With Sin Gusano, CINCO released its own pechuga de piña, made by a small producer in Ejutla, Oaxaca, and distilled with fresh pineapples from the area. It is poured at the bar and sold by the bottle. The rows of mezcal behind it were chosen by the owners on their travels. Ask the staff for a tour of the back bar.
The food is a short run of small plates drawn from the family cooking upstairs. The XO Taco, panko-fried pork belly on XO sauce with salsa borracha and pink pickled radish, is the one to have. There is also a blue corn flauta of octopus on jalapeño mash, and a scallop tostada with samphire and chiltepin.
Bookings sit with the Corrochio's site, so the cellar works as the second act of a dinner upstairs. Line the stomach from the snack card before the agave starts doing the talking, and visit before or after dinner. It is common sense, but mezcal has a way of making plans for the evening on your behalf.
The hedge
Two practical warnings. The entrance is easy to walk past, and the rarer bottles on the back bar are limited, so when one is gone it stays gone.
Mexico has more than one spirit. CINCO would like a quiet word about the rest.
- The vibe
- Candlelit brick cellar, fireplace, trinkets on the ceiling, marquee at street level.
- The food
- Small plates from Corrochio's: XO Taco, octopus flauta, scallop tostada.
- The drink
- El Padresito first; then El Tejate, or the house pineapple pechuga.
- A tip
- Book via Corrochio's website, and look for the marquee; open Wednesday to Saturday.
