Corazón

Corazón is a Mexican restaurant that has teamed up with Restaurant Kits, a delivery service working with independent restaurants across the UK to provide high-quality meals to cook at home. It’s based in London and while normally, we wouldn’t cover food south of Yorkshire, these are no ordinary times. The closure of restaurants to in-person visits means the food-lover has started to rely on kit meals and deliveries, but thankfully these go far beyond the typical junk food grub of pre-covid times. Rather, we can enjoy meals at home from some of the finest restaurants in the UK. And Corazón is very much one of these.

Companies like Restaurant Kits are filling the gaps between takeaways and home-cooking while the nation’s restaurants are closed, and doing it impossibly well

Described as the best Mexican food in London, Corazón specialises in authentic fare from this Latin American country. The cook-at-home ‘carne asada tacos’ box we received from Restaurant Kits arrives on time, nicely chilled and full to the brim of mouth-watering treats. The most eye-catching of all is the enormous piece of beef hanger steak. Sealed in plastic, this is a huge piece of quality beef, soaking in aromatic, colourful spices and practically a work of art in itself.

It comes with an array of other pots of toppings, including drunken black beans, salsa, pickled onions, chillies and salsa. For those with bare-bones cupboards and fridges, it also comes with a fresh and crunchy baby gem lettuce, some coriander, a potent red chilli and an avocado. The instructions were mostly clear, although due to a bit of confusion with the way they were laid out we did end up slicing up the steak before cooking – no matter, it didn’t affect things one bit.

The results were astonishing. Far beyond any at-home Mexican cooking I’ve attempted in the past. The star of the show is the beautifully-marinaded steak, but the countless array of extras add a new taste to every bite. The corn tortillas were fine, though the option of softer, flour tortillas would have been nice. Less authentic, sure, but life’s too short to live by strict rules when it comes to food.

Corazón offers a world of taste and excitement for the food-lover

All too often, kit meals can disappoint, either by being too complicated to cook properly or by being fairly ordinary and the kind of thing you could do yourself with a half-decent recipe. The Corazón tacos were neither. They were easy to cook, fine for a beginner willing to learn new skills, and the sheer breadth and depth of flavours were something I couldn’t possibly recreate on my own. And that beef steak is something truly special.

Companies like Restaurant Kits are filling the gaps between takeaways and home-cooking while the nation’s restaurants are closed, and doing it impossibly well. With high-level restaurants such as Corazón signed up along with dozens more, they offer a world of taste and excitement for the food-fan while we wait for late June, when (fingers crossed) we can dine out again.

To try cook-at-home meals from Corazón and other high-end independent restaurants, go to restaurantkitsuk.com