his youth. “I was being cheeky and said, ‘How are you going to make it up to me?’” She kissed him. “Not long after,” he confides, “We’re dating.” Winters ventured to Caliente Cab every day thereafter to wait for his waitress to end her shift. She, of course, would always tell him she’d be off work much earlier than she actually was. He would always show up on time (“Like an idiot,” he adds). Desiring to make himself useful during his wait, he asked the manager if he could lend a hand in the back cleaning down the kitchen. “The bar manager would look at me like, ‘What the fuck?’” recalls Grant. “But the chef was always grateful because they’d be rammed.” He started arriving earlier and earlier, hopping right in the kitchen and gratuitously engaging himself in some of the basic kitchen prep work. Two weeks later, Caliente Cab called him up and offered him a job. He extended his summer an extra two months, blowing off school in Ireland, and accepted the job. He spent the next few months in the back of that small, hot New York City kitchen, where Winters learned the foundation for all of his Mexican-cuisine based skills. “I was the only gringo in the kitchen and I couldn’t speak a word of Spanish,” remarks Winters. He didn’t learn much Spanish that extended summer but he did gain a sense of how to cook authentic Mexican food by closely observing the head chef and the other Guadalajara workers. “Man, people’s perception of Mexican food - even in the States - is horrendous,” Winters explains, excitedly thrusting his hands in the air. “You can’t just slap Mexican food with tacos. What about the soups, the stews, the way they cleverly use chilies? In our kitchen we presently have 19 different types of pepper to produce the food that we do. About three are hot, the rest are used for flavor. Americans, all they seem to know is chipotle, chilies and jalapenos. Fuck that! What about the rest of them?” After a few months in the restaurant, Winters returned to Ireland. He graduated from school, then moved to Birmingham, located approximately 120 miles northwest of London, for university to study hotel and catering management. He worked his way through university as a chef. After graduating, he spent the
next 15 years working various chef and management positions at several different restaurants. In early 2004, Winters lost his job in downsizing. After an exhausting 150 interviews over the next six months, Winters decided to launch his own business. During that difficult time, Winters gained a lot of weight. “You wouldn’t know it now but I used to look like I was 7 or 8 months pregnant,” laughs Winters, currently rocking a not too flabby medium built. This is origin of the name, El Panzon, meaning “The Belly.” On November 2, 2004, he opened a
in the United Kingdom. “They’ll come back for plates 3, 4, 5, 6 times.” Pretty soon Winters was appearaning on blogs around the area and he started gaining a decent following.
Mexican stall in Brixton’s at Hob-Goblin, which has since become Hootananny’s. Management issues forced him to move to another bar, where “ego problems” came into play. Then he opened a stall in the Camden Town Markets. In 2007, when Hootananny’s came under new management, he returned to the Mecca of live music in South London. “Tacos were around before us, but they never really took off. They were served primarily in Turkish-owned restaurants. Horrendous Old El Paso tacos using spices you’d never even find in fucking Mexico,” illustrates Winters, referring to tacos constructed with the packaged El Paso dried seasoning and jarred salsas you can buy in the grocery store. “It was wrong, never fresh and it turned people’s perceptions of Mexican food the wrong way.” Winters started out giving away tons of free samples to draw customers and give them a taste of real Mexican cuisine. “The English don’t know what they’re eating at first and when they try it, they’re blown away,” says Winters, who claims that he and another company known as Daddy Donkey essentially pioneered and popularized the taco
Eighty percent of the ingredients he uses are fresh, with eighty-five percent of those ingredients supplied by local businesses in Brixton. “I know the meat guy, the veggie guy, the fruit guy,” says Winters. “I know all of my neighbors here. I do business in the area and have never had a single advertisement. All of my customers come from word of mouth. People talk about me and people come. There’s a great sense of community here.” Winters says El Panzon is a real favorite among the Mexican residents. London holds a considerably small population of Mexicans but Grant claims that a large portion of those who do live in the city flock from all over to Brixton in order to get a familiar bite to eat. “They’re homesick and want to eat tacos, so they come after work, get drunk, enjoy live music and eat tacos,” says Winters. Winters does more than just late night tacos at Hootananny’s. Come early and you can enjoy a laid back scene of slow jammin’ reggae beats serenading in the background as you order from El Panzon’s more extensive daytime and evening menu. Choose your meal from two types >>>
“This guy’s one of the famous people in Brixton,” Bobby Holder chuckles when he sees Winters parked on a wooden bench outside one of Brixton’s local coffee shops. A handful of other people roam over to drop a friendly hello. When he walks around town, people steadily approach the Irishman who has lived in Brixton for 11 years.
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