Meet Mamasita's second venue, Hotel Jesus

Hotel Jesus, a second venue from Melbourne Mexican queue-magnet Mamasita's Matt Lane and Nick Peters along with Guadalajara-born head chef Yasser Garcia and business partner James Brown (from Adelaide's Africola), has opened on Smith Street and it's absolutely nothing like the original.

Common theme, Mexican street food, but from there it's a whole new ball game: quick service tostadas, seafood cocktails and a retro-tiled interior that looks like Seminyak's Motel Mexicola collided with a 1950s ice-cream shop (Brown, a graphic designer by trade, was also responsible for the Motel Mexicola design).

"In taquerias in Mexico there's no service whatsoever," says Lane of the pictorial laminated menus (just holding one is like being on holiday) and the tick-box paper ordering system. Pencil in your required number of items (ranging from $5 tacos to $20-something ceviches), hand it back to the floor staff and sip on-tap sparkling grapefruit and tequila cocktails.

A 15-stool, takeaway-focused sideline, Taco Wey (geddit?) opens alongside the 75-seat restaurant on Wednesday with a range of tacos and burritos. Lane says it'll be a lot more loose, "experimental stuff that's almost Americana," so don't be surprised to find fried chicken tacos on the menu soon.

Open Wed-Thu 5pm-late; Fri-Sun 11.30am-late

174 Smith Street, Collingwood, hoteljesus.com.au