Aguamiel

Churros fried to order and dusted in cinnamon sugar, with horchata cold brew to drink beside them: the Covent Garden counter keeps to the sweet side of Mexico.

Churros first, coffee through horchata

The way in is churros and the drinks built around them. “We fry churros the way Mexico remembers them,” as the house puts it, and they arrive crunchy, golden and dusted with cinnamon sugar. The dips are the decision: dulce de leche, condensed milk or chocolate. The menu reads as a Mexican dessert counter rather than a broad café, with churros, sauces and paired drinks carrying the identity, and the same focus travels out to weddings, launches and office parties for clients including Sony Music, Deckers and GAP.

Coffee sits inside that same sweet frame. The lineup includes churros with hot xocolate, horchata cold brew, banana bread hotchata, the OG horchata, café de olla and dulce de leche, plus seasonal specials. Horchata cold brew is cinnamon-rice horchata over slow-brewed coffee, and banana bread hotchata is warm horchata with, in the house’s phrase, banana-bread soul. The house does not put a roaster’s name on the board, so the coffee is best read through those drinks.

A small counter with a Mexican accent

This is a focused sweet stop, not an all-day restaurant. Compact signatures and fast turnover point to a counter-led rhythm: fresh churros, drinks built on hot xocolate, horchata and coffee, and dessert formats instead of savoury plates or brunch.

The atmosphere comes through smell and craft more than through interiors. Aguamiel talks about organic ingredients, recipes with roots and a kitchen that smells like Sunday morning in CDMX, and it is known as London’s first churrería. Saritas, a churro ice cream sandwich, open another dessert route beyond churros and sauce, and the cold drinks get as much attention as the fried side at what is a bright, sunny little counter.

Order the horchata cold brew with churros

For a first order, take churros and one clear-profile sauce: dulce de leche for caramel depth, condensed milk for a sweeter dairy finish, chocolate to stay close to the hot xocolate. Churros anchor everything because the house repeats them everywhere, handmade daily in London and fried in the Mexican style it foregrounds.

For drinks, horchata cold brew is the sharpest bridge between coffee and dessert, cinnamon-rice horchata poured over slow-brewed coffee. Café de olla adds another Mexican coffee reference. The OG horchata keeps it non-coffee and rooted in sweet rice milk with cinnamon, while banana bread hotchata is the warmer, more dessert-like option and the natural partner to a plate of churros. If a second food item is wanted, make it saritas.