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The future of Covent Garden’s Café Pacifico – which opened in 1982, making it one of the UK’s oldest Mexican restaurants – is in doubt.
Restaurant Online reports that liquidators have been appointed to Laverlathe Limited, which was Café Pacifico’s last known operating company, and remains named on the Langley Street restaurant’s website. Laverlathe was ‘compulsorily wound up in March following a petition filed last November’, writes Restaurant Online. The publication adds: ‘It is not currently clear whether the business has been sold to a new operator or is continuing to trade under the control of the liquidators.’
Café Pacifico calls itself ‘a fixture of the London Mexican restaurant scene. Being the first of its kind, it first introduced Mexican food, tequila and culture to the UK.’ The ‘homemade’ menu includes nachos, quesadillas, crispy empanadas, burritos, tacos and fajitas, as well as sweet adobo pork ribs with pineapple honey glaze.
Café Pacifico used to have a sister restaurant La Perla on nearby Maiden Lane. According to Restaurant Online, it continues to be linked to Primos Mexican Cantina on Blackstock Road in Finsbury Park. However, this is operated via a different holding company to Laverlathe, so we reckon they’ll be safe.
Now got a craving for chimichangas? Check out our expert-curated list of the top 20 Mexican restaurants in London.
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