Santiago Lastra of Kol in London on translating the flavours of Mexico with British ingredients

In your own words, how would you describe your cuisine?

The cuisine is inspired by Mexico—the culture, ingredients and flavours. It also stems from my memories and travels around Mexico, things that are part of your everyday life as a Mexican, not only in the city but also within indigenous communities. Then, we take that inspiration and we translate that using British ingredients. 

Do you have any examples of this Mexcian to British translation?

We don't use any citrus or avocado, and tomato if it’s not in season. But with Mexican food, everything has lime, avocado or tomato. So we try to get local ingredients to taste Mexican. In Mexico we use coriander. Here, we use a type of herb called sea arrowgrass, or beach coriander, from Britain and it smells and tastes like a very refreshing coriander. This is a very direct ingredient translation, but we also add layers and process ingredients to achieve this. 

In place of lime, for example, we use fermented gooseberries. And then, instead of habanero and lime, we use fermented gooseberries and Scotch bonnet. But for a lime-flavoured sorbet, the fermented gooseberries are not citrusy enough. You need to add another layer. In Britain, there are different types of pine that have citrus notes. You can grate the pine cones and they smell like lime. Branches of a large Douglas fir pine smell of grapefruit, so we’ll use this to make a sorbet that tastes like grapefruit. Then, what about the colour? If it’s early spring, there’s rhubarb. It tastes like grapefruit, but it's not as bitter, so we’ll grill it, add it to the mix and use it as a base. For a Paloma [cocktail], you can make syrup out of this, then add tequila and carbonate it. It will be a Paloma that doesn't have grapefruit, but it tastes like it does. 

We’re not an educational restaurant. If you want to know more we can tell you, but we just want to be a restaurant where people have fun and enjoy the food. It doesn't matter how many processes we use to get that flavour—even if it is a little bit hard to get there.

Your menu updates seasonally, but do you have a favourite among the dishes? Please tell us why.

I love the langoustine taco because it’s our signature dish, and it was the first dish that I made for the restaurant. It represents two of my favourite food experiences. 

If you asked me what my last meal before I die would be, I would say what I had in Baja California, at this place called Puerto Nuevo. They have these massive pans with pork fat on the beach. They cut the lobsters and fry them in the shell, and it’s incredible. They are completely caramelised, as the pork fat gets quite sweet. And then you have fresh wheat flour tortillas, rice, beans, salsa and wine. It was one of the best experiences, and when I was there, I just felt thankful to be alive. I don't think you can top this.

The second experience, I went on a trip to Scotland to find different producers and one of them was for langoustines from Skye. I brought a griddle and ingredients to make tortillas with me. I took two big rocks from the sea and put some wood underneath. I rolled the tortillas on the cold griddle and then heated it up, cooked the langoustines and made the tacos there. There were berries around so we used them as lime—crushed some in a mortar and put the juice inside the [langoustine] heads. Then I just ate it there in the breeze of the cold Scottish sea. It's going to sound tacky, but I cried.

This dish is something that really represents our ethos and why we're here. We want to share experiences. Sometimes people do recipes just for the sake of them or because they know how to do them. But a recipe is more powerful when it has a meaning behind it and a story.

Do you think your time at Noma shaped you into the chef you are today?

I think it did. I didn't cook at Noma, I wasn't a chef. I was sourcing ingredients, making deals with producers and suppliers, and organising research trips. So it shaped me as a person. I’ll forever be thankful to René [Redzepi] for this experience. I don't know how many times I’ve told him that but I will keep telling him until I'm not here because he changed my life. 

I learned how to deal with people, which is a skill that you cannot learn in the kitchen. I also learned how to find quality, and that quality is not something overly luxurious. It is something that is crafted with respect and has meaning. Food is a craft before it is an art, and that is what they [Redzepi and the team at Noma] do really well and I learned a lot from that.

I hear you were a maths fanatic at school. Are you still? And has this helped you in your culinary career?

I wanted to be a mathematician when I was 15. And I was going to Maths Olympics and stuff like that. It's not about remembering everything or being some highly intelligent person. I think maths is more about creativity, and finding the best way to get a solution. There is a mathematics term, an elegant equation, which means you have a short equation that has everything. It’s a creative mindset to think, try and do things differently. And in cooking or the restaurant business, you have to have that flexibility and creativity for solving problems, so I think maths has helped me with that. 

You opened Kol during the pandemic. What were the challenges you faced?

It was horrible. We opened in the middle of Covid-19 and no one really prepares you for that. I’m a happy, positive person but I just felt so sad. Thankfully, we were able to pull through and opened the restaurant in October 2020. It was a memorable experience. We could only open for two weeks at that time, but people would walk through the door, see the space and hear the music, and feel like they were on holiday. They’d thank us and I think that shaped us and our hospitality. Even after the pandemic, our goal is to make people feel like we’ve transported them to a different place.

Also, the fact that we closed and opened, and then closed and opened again, helped us adjust things that some restaurants take years to change, but we had time to think. Making those changes made it easier for us to be a better restaurant. That was the silver lining. 

Why is it important for you to showcase the diversity of Mexico’s culinary heritage?

It’s the reason I moved here. When you're outside of your country, you become an ambassador. If you're in a group of people, and you say that you're from Mexico, whatever you say or do, people will remember that conversation as a reference to your culture. I believe that I have a responsibility.

I also feel that it's a shame that Mexico and Mexican quality is not well understood in the world. And the more I do, the more I think that I have a voice to be able to make people aware of that. I believe this is the time to change that perception of low quality, cheap street food view of Mexico, and Latin America.

Any plans for KOL in the near future?

We want to keep learning and evolving. I'm very excited about what else we can develop in the restaurant and bar. We're also going to collaborate, bring people from all over the world to cook in the restaurant and people that believe in Mezcal to the Mezcaleria [bar], and we’ll be going and doing some things abroad as well. 

Will we see you in Asia any time soon?

I really want to. I love Asia. There are so many different countries there and I really want to learn more about them. For me, Chinese, Taiwanese and Japanese food are my three favourites to eat at home. I am in love with the food and the culture and I think we share a similar thing, in that we’re yet to be truly discovered. The quality and the ancient stories, crafts, heritage, and food from Asia are so inspiring, and I think the Western world is still unaware. So, for me, it's really exciting to be able to do this interview, to be able to go to Asia in the near future and to learn more. 

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