El Rio Mexican

5, Back Wall Gate
Macclesfield
Cheshire
SK11 6LQ
Tel: 01625 431355

This restaurant used to be called “Yorkys”, or some such, and served dull Anglo-French fare. It’s been changed to “El Rio” for some time now, but put off by its previous lacklustre performance; we’d never been in until a few weeks ago.

The restaurant now serves Mexican food and does lunchtime tapas as well as a wide and interesting selection of themed dishes.

From a small frontage down a narrow gully at the side of Mothercare, one enters a warren of whitewashed stone “caves” on various levels and full of nooks and crannies making for an intimate if subterranean eating experience.

Having only been at lunchtime, I would worry on a busy evening about cigarette smoke. And speaking of evenings, they regularly have live Jazz bands perform.

Onto the food. Tapas portions are plentiful (I find I need 2 for a lunch and 3 for a dinner) and the variety is good, though not exceptional. However, they also do a good selection of main dishes and enough vegetarian choice to keep me happy. I won’t describe individual dishes, but the flavours were what I’d expect for Spanish-Mexican food, with dishes tending to be spicy rather than hot.

As well as the usual, they have Mexican beers and cocktails such as Margaritas. Cost is average; we had a family main meal (Sue, myself and the two children) including soft drinks and a bottle of wine for £50. We enjoyed it enough for Sue and I to return a week later for another lunch, without the children, and were equally happy.

I recommend it.

Dave Wardell