Poca Madre, the Calida crew’s breezy Mexican-inspired oasis, is now cooking in South Bank
When the Alemré Hospitality Group closed its long-running South Bank eatery Mucho Mexicano, it wasn’t due to a lack of popularity. Mexican cuisine has never been more popular in Brisbane and Mucho’s all-you-can-eat taco deals were a smash hit. But the Alemré team – who, just a few months ago, made a splash with its Argentinian-style steakhouse Calida – knew that the concept needed a refresher in order to match the standard of dining the group was striving for. Poca Madre – the team’s new eatery and bar, which opened to the public just before Riverfire – sees the team delivering a more considered take on Mexican-inspired cuisine.
“We noticed with Calida opening across the road that we’d taken a step up in terms of the quality that we want to offer,” says executive chef Adam Starr. “The look of that restaurant and the feel of it, we want to replicate here [at Poca Madre]. So the choice was pretty easy for us to move away from the Tex-Mex style and focus on some really good, bold Mexican flavours.”
As soon as Mucho Mexicano closed its South Bank location on Sunday July 7 (the Hawthorne outpost is still trading), the team immediately kick-started an overhaul of the site. As the venue underwent a dramatic aesthetic shift, Adam started rebuilding the menu from scratch, sourcing as many Mexican products as he could get his hands on in order to start an in-depth R&D process.
“[When constructing a new menu] I always turn to what produce I can get my hands on and really deep dive into anything I can get that is Mexican,” says Adam. “We want to tick off certain boxes – like we want to have a great guacamole, we want to have good tacos and we want to have a lot of dishes that people can share.
“We have a supplier in Melbourne called Poblano and they import directly from Mexico. We were just trying all different types of things, trying to match the food and the drinks with what the venue was going to look like. It’s so open and bright – [it made sense] to merge the idea of shared dining and drinking together in that new space.”
Visually, Poca Madre cuts a striking figure, with the two-level, 200-seater corner site transformed by Unita into a fetching oasis boasting warm pinks and earthy tones. The joint features a spacious open-air dining area and a dedicated margarita bar on the ground floor (both accented by warm tiles and hand-painted murals), while the mezzanine level houses a second bar as well as more tables shielded from the elements.
For Poca Madre’s debut offering, Adam and his kitchen team have pivoted away from Mucho’s Tex-Mex leanings, instead electing to pay homage to traditional Mexican recipes while adding a contemporary edge and a local spin.
“We’re really just trying to stay broad – we’re not really like honing in on one specific aspect of Mexican cuisine,” Adam explains. “We’re blending in these unique Mexican ingredients and products with everyday Australian fare.”
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The menu traverses botanas (snacks), tacos, antojitos (small plates), comidas (mains) and share-style banquets, with smoky, spicy and sweet flavours saturating the offering. It all starts with the essentials – guacamole with pickled onions, coriander, tajin and olive oil, served alongside a pile of warm blue corn totopos dusted in chipotle chilli powder. From there, you might graze on jalapeno and manchego croquetas, lamb cutlets marinated in mirasol chilli, or pan-roasted prawn cutlets swimming in sweet chilli tamarind miso butter.
A five-strong selection of tacos includes fillings like crispy fried confit pork belly with burnt pineapple, battered snapper with mango chimichurri and roasted dry-aged rib-eye with griddled onions and horseradish crema. For mains, there’s quesabirra tacos with slow-roasted brisket, queso fresco and sticky bone broth, pollo y maíz (a comforting dish featuring roasted chicken breast paired with a confit tamale and rich chicken jus), Matambre flank steak with smoky mezcal jus, and cachetes de res (slow-cooked beef cheeks).
Agave enthusiasts will find a lot to like about Poca Madre’s drinks menu, with the venue’s own margarita bar offering an eye-popping and tongue-tantalising selection of signatures and twists on classics. On the margarita front, guests can peruse a page-long menu of riffs, from the Smokey Piña (mezcal, Cointreau, pineapple, lime, caramel, charred pineapple and a sea-salt rim) to the Guava Margarita (Cointreau, guava, lime, sugar and a lime-salt rim). Poca Madre’s drinks list also features a broad selection of tequilas and mezcal (with singular tastings and agave flights available), Mexican and Australian beers, and a sturdy selection of wines.