Mordialloc is a vibe and the team from La Cabra are here for it. Set just back from the beach, and only metres from the train station, the latest Mexican addition to the Mordi strip is also La Cabra's ninth and biggest to date. Housed across three levels in a heritage building, complete with a rooftop deck and stunning views across the bay, it is perfect for watching the sunset with a spicy marg in hand. Foodwise, you'll find all the favourites, think chargrilled corn, jalapeno poppers, nachos, quesadillas, and plenty of tacos. I sat down with founders Sherinder Kohli, Derrick Chandra and Joshua Smith on a hot sunny day when the beach was packed, and hundreds of kids were jumping into the sea from the end of the pier. The three friends met through a shared love of hospitality and a desire to create a super fun dining destination. Since 2019 they have created nine such venues and they have plans for even more. And just a little note to the adventurous, anyone who dines at the Mordi La Cabra from 13 January to 30 March, 2025 will go into the draw to win a week-long trip to Mexico. The trip for two includes accommodation, flights and the winners will be taken on a tour of Mexico's iconic Casa Herradura Tequila Distillery, just rack up $50 on your bill and you'll be in with a shot.
Thank you for your time. It's a pretty busy day. This is your ninth venue. Where was the first?
Joshua: Hawthorn East, across from the Rivoli Cinema.
Oh, that's right amongst it. When did that open?
Joshua: March, 2019
Well, you haven't rested on your laurels, have you? You've pumped them out. You're obviously onto a good recipe for success.
Joshua: That's what we are aiming for.
And are you all from Mordialloc?
Joshua: Bayside area. I'm originally from Adelaide. But then I grew up in Aspendale. I met these guys because Derek was working at Main Street. Me and Sherry worked at Parker's Cafe in Parkdale, which is just around the corner.
Where did the idea for Mexican come from?
Derek: It was the shop in Hawthorn that inspired us to go the Mexican way.
Joshua: It's on a dinner strip. We were working in a cafe, and we actually all wanted to open a cafe. That was the original plan. Then Sheri found a store in Hawthorn East, and it was more dinner focussed. It had a really nice courtyard, so we just thought Mexican would work there.
Derrick: There was no real Mexican there, just Taco Bell.
Mexican's a really big thing. It's had many waves Mexican. I'm obviously a lot older than all of you, and growing up in Christchurch, there was a definite Mexican wave early on, but it holds its ground, doesn't it? Is it because its exotic, but can be cheap and cheerful?
Joshua: It's a good mix.
So then once you decided on Mexican, how did you go about deciding on food, and is it authentic?
Derrick: It's not completely authentic. At first we tried to be authentic as possible. But then I think as the menu got bigger, we tried to blend in other Asian flavours to make it more appealing to everyone. Then we got in burritos. With the first menu, we didn't have burritos.
Joshua: When we first started, no burritos. And no margaritas.
No margaritas?
Joshua: I don't know why. We thought we would be different. But thenwe changed it.
Derrick: We made it more Tex Mex flavour.
I was looking through the menu, and it's largely margaritas and tequila. In terms of the corn chips or the burritos or the tacos that you're using, where do you go for that?
Derrick: La Tortilleria.
They are the best.
Derrick: Very authentic. So some things we kept Mexican and then the flavour fillings are mostly Tex Mex.
What's the most popular? What do people go for?
Joshua: Tacos and burritos.
The tacos are really reasonably priced.
Joshua: And we do $5 tacos on Tuesday.
Do you keep the menu the same for each of the stores?
Joshua: Yes. We went down the road of changing them slightly when we first opened new ones. And then we decided that was very hard. Even just the back of house stuff with menu changing and POS systems and all that, it's better if it's all the same.
Sherinder: Derrick is the executive chef. He designs all the menus and then we have kitchen managers for each particular kitchen. They manage the rosters and all that.
How easy or hard is it over nine venues to keep that consistency? What do you have to do to make sure that everyone's achieving that level?
Derrick: I simplify the menu to make it easier for kitchens to prepare the dishes.The first menu had a lot more different dishes and flavours. But as we got bigger, I made the menu and the recipes simpler. That's been challenging because, the skill level of every chef is different. It has to be controlled like that.
Sherinder: And to control the taste, what we've done is that we have a warehouse kitchen. They produce the sauces with our recipes, and they supply it to all the stores. That ensures consistency as well.
I think that that sauces are the key, aren't they? I have a Mexican friend who once said to me, and he denies that he said this, but it was very wise, that sauces are like mothers, they bring everything together.
Derrick: That's so true.
And you opened on the 7th December?
Joshua: Yes, that was our official opening.
What was here before?
Joshua: It was an old butcher for 20, 30 years.
Sherinder: We actually reconstructed everything.
Joshua: Well, we kept the facade, and that's it. It did have brick, and we really liked the brick look and it matched what we wanted to do, so we redid brick.
In terms of background, how did you all get into hospitality? Derrick, you have a chef background?
Derrick: Yes. My dad was a chef back in Fiji. I got inspired by that. After school, I could hace gone to Uni and done other stuff, but I think I was determined. I just went into trade school and did my apprenticeship.
What do you like about working with food?
Derrick: Food brings people together, the togetherness. It doesn't matter whether it is lunch or dinner. It brings people together. It's makes everyone happy.
What are your food memories growing up? What do you eat in Fiji?
Derrick: It is pretty simple. Mostly it's boiled, like boiled fish or root vegetables mostly. But they mostly use coconut for milky cooking. A lot of vinegar in cooking as well. Ther are a lot of heavy salt bases. They cook the food in the oven under the earth.
A bit like the Maori hangi.
Derrick: Very similar to that.
And Sheri, how did you get into hospo?
Sherinder: I'm a chef by trade as well.
Did you always know you wanted to get into that?
Sherinder: I started chefing here. I was born in India and did my schooling there. When I moved here, I started studying to become a chef. I worked for about 13, 14 years as a chef. We all used to work together. And that's how I got into hospo.
What's it like now? Do you still get on the pans?
Sherinder: Very rarely. I am more on the marketing side or the accounts side of the business. And managing.
I guess that's sustainable because it's hard being in a kitchen, isn't it? It's good to have that foresight and you bring all that experience of having worked with the food and all the costings and everything into what you're doing. Do you miss it?
Sherinder: Sometimes. It's hard working in the kitchen, but, I do sometimes. I do jump in when I need to. But now I work more front of house, wherever needed.
And how did you get into it, Josh?
Joshua: I jumped into working at a cafe when I was studying. Then I really enjoyed working at the cafe that we were all working at. I ended up becoming a manager there. I worked full time and decided to drop out of uni because I enjoyed it. I jumped on board with these guys because they wanted to do a store.
That's a big thing too, because you can all get on really well together as friends and as colleagues when you're working for someone else, but taking that next step to where you're working together, how do you manage? Do you have boundaries about what you do in terms of downtime, in terms of what your different roles are? How did you work that out?
Joshua: It just came to us, because we actually all do bring different things. And we always have from the start, to be honest. We never really talk about boundaries. I just tell them what I need, and that's it. [laughter] We all work together pretty well, to be honest. We are pretty easy going.
Derrick: If there's something wrong, we bring it up, and then we discuss a way.
Do you tend to have to go around all the different stores, are you usually together, or are you often in the different places?
Joshua: We have pretty much always done it together. I think we're getting to the stage where we will need to do it separately here and there. Right now, I'm pretty much full time here, and same with Derrick. So Sheri will probably be the one to jump around the other stores and keep track of all that.
Food brings people together, the togetherness. It doesn’t matter whether it is lunch or dinner. It brings people together. It’s makes everyone happy. ~ Derrick Chandra, La Cabra
Why multiple stores? Is it the thrill? Is it adrenaline? Why 9?
Sherinder: We want to grow the business. With one store, you can reach a certain level. But there's always what more you can do.
Joshua: And we felt successful.
Sherinder: It all started from when we did Hawthorn. When Covid hit, we had nothing to do.
We used to sit in the store with nothing to do. We got a shop in Hampton. We liked the location, and we thought, let's do it because there's nothing to do anyway. Let's just do it. And that's where it started. Obviously, we had to turn it into a franchise model because we can't be in nine stores. So that's where the franchise model came from.
That's right. So there's other people managing those. Is it hard to give up your baby?
Sherinder: Hawthorn is still with us.
Joshua: Hawthorn is still ours. But we did give up the one in Hampton. That was ok. We did it this year and we knew this was going to be starting and this was going to be the biggest
one.
When people come into La Cabra, what is the ideal experience? What would you suggest they order?
Derrick: I would get some nachos, Jalapenos, the wings, then some tacos, the fish or prawn tacos are quite popular. The birrias are very popular, actually. We brought them on as a special and we had to keep them on the menu. It's a permanent thing on the menu now.
And drinkswise, what would you suggest?
Sherinder: Margaritas. Passionfruit lychee margarita is very popular.
Joshua: I made a passionfruit lychee marg symbolizing a porn star martini. It comes out like that, and people love it.
With all that in mind and your obvious raging success and so on, what would your advice be to people wanting to get into hospo either as chefs or otherwise? What do you need?
Sherinder: Passion. Especially chefing. It's not like, I like cooking or I love cooking. Nah. You can't be a chef just for that. You have a passion.
Derrick: You need that to get through the long hours especially at the beginning, the first 10 years at least.
Joshua: You need a strong work ethic.
Derrick. Yes and you need to be determined and have a goal of where you see yourself in 10 years.
And I guess in general, you have to like people, don't you?
Derrick: Yes. That's a big one. Exactly.
Sherinder: Or at least show you do.
Joshua: I think that's what I'm good at. Because I can actually not like people, but I don't show it.
Well, congratulations. I can't wait to come back down the coast.
La Cabra, 515 Main Street, Mordialloc