Nuevo Latino

I'm eating off a saucer (separated from its cup sometime between now and 1970, if the heavy, brown-flecked ceramic is much to go by). Our scratched-up wooden table bears a long-stemmed rose in a dainty glass teardrop vase, and there's a mirror-backed bedroom sideboard to my right piled with plates and mismatched cutlery. This homely Latin American place – in West Footscray's Little India – is one family's singular expression of Nuevo Latino (New Latin) cuisine.

Nuevo Latino takes traditional, potentially exotic ingredients from all over the Latin world, like yuka (or cassava), and offers them in an Anglo-friendly way: super-crisp chips coated in a brick-red spice blend (three types of pepper, annato seeds and roasted pepitas). They're good straight-up, swiped through smoky tomato sauce, and between swills of Estrella Damm Spanish pilsner.

It also takes fairly conventional ingredients and treats them potentially unconventionally: quinoa ceviche-style, tossed with sweet potato cubes and lime, with dill, coriander and red onion, or chickpeas with chopped pickled artichoke hearts – fine, if a tad plain. The home-style vibe emanates warmly from the kitchen where Clara Rodriguez cooks her heart out, along with her chef son Juan. Another son, Salvatore (also a chef) works the room with his wife Yoko. Apart from Yoko (who is Japanese-Australian), the Rodriguez family comes to West Footscray from El Salvador.

The pupusa comes from El Salvador too. It's a filled corn tortilla – the tortilla made with masa or nixtamalised cornmeal (a process where the grain is soaked and cooked in lime to break down corn's gluey cell wall, which makes it easier to grind and bind with water). Nuevo Latino's pupusas are filled with cheese, three of them: feta for a touch of tart, mozzarella for stretch and ricotta for body. Load them with refried beans, mild pickled cabbage and, maybe, home-made tomato sauce.

Ten of the 20 tapas, rationes and mains are vegetarian, which is a bit nuevo-age. Apart from the pupusa, there's tamale: masa again, enveloping cheese and spinach, steamed in banana leaf, which imparts a subtle but deep, almost metallic flavour. The hero meat dish is pounded thin scotch fillet, skewered, hickory smoked and grilled – served with corn tortillas.

The middle of this long room is permanently set with a stage. When bands aren't playing (usually Friday to Sunday), films are projected onto the wall. It's part of the Latin cultural immersion. Sitting near the kitchen one hot night, my mate resorts to using her '80s-geometric patterned side-plate as a fan; it's awkwardly hot, and we can't get anyone's attention to order dessert. But these small gripes fade into the background of this cosy, fun, family-run cantina.

Tip ... Guest chefs with Latin American heritage take over the kitchen on Sundays to cook their home country's menu; there's live music to match.
Dish ... Cheesy pupusas, with refried beans and pickled cabbage.
Vibe ... Cantina meets casa.