Covent Garden Hot Chocolate and Churros to 10pm: Aguamiel

Aguamiel, at 24 Wellington Street in Covent Garden, serves churros fried to order with a spiced Mexican hot chocolate from 12pm every day. It closes at 8pm on Monday, Tuesday and Sunday, 9pm on Wednesday and Thursday, and 10pm on Friday and Saturday. The website's line about pairing the two is blunt: the chocolate is not optional. On a cold late-October evening, with the theatres on Wellington Street filling up, that late Friday and Saturday close is the reason to know about it.

The Covent Garden estate describes Aguamiel as London's first churrería serving traditional Mexican dessert. The churros are crunchy, golden and dusted in cinnamon sugar, and they come with dipping sauces: dulce de leche, condensed milk and chocolate. Everything is made fresh in-house daily, according to the estate's listing. The website says it uses organic ingredients and recipes with roots, from a kitchen that smells like Sunday morning in Mexico City.

The hot chocolate is the Mexican kind. When the shop opened, the owner, Bernardo, told Hot Dinners that the drink is infused with spices and piloncillo, the unrefined Mexican cane sugar. That gives it a warmer, more caramel sweetness than a European hot chocolate, with spice rather than cream doing the work. Dip a churro in it rather than ordering the chocolate sauce as well, and you get both in one.

The other half of the menu is horchata, the sweet rice drink. The original version is listed as The OG horchata, with cinnamon. The horchata cold brew pours cinnamon-rice horchata over slow-brewed coffee, and one Google review quoted on the website singles it out as amazing. For the colder months, the banana bread hotchata is warm horchata with banana bread flavours, which the website calls winter's new best friend. There is also café de olla, the Mexican spiced coffee.

For dessert lovers, saritas are churro ice cream sandwiches. The full menu, including seasonal specials and dulce de leche items, is published on Deliveroo, which also handles delivery, along with Uber Eats. Prices are not listed on the website, so order at the counter and ask. A sensible first order is a portion of churros with the chocolate dip and a hot chocolate on the side for dipping.

If you are choosing between the two hot drinks, the Mexican hot chocolate is the sweeter, spiced cup, and the café de olla is the coffee drinker's version, brewed Mexican-style with spice. Both suit a cold evening, but only the chocolate is made for dipping churros. The estate's listing also mentions horchata as a sweet rice milk with coffee topped with cinnamon, which is the cold-brew drink above in a warmer description. Single-origin coffee is on the menu too, according to Hot Dinners.

Wellington Street runs between the Strand and Covent Garden Market, and Aguamiel is a few doors from the Lyceum Theatre, home of The Lion King. That makes it an easy stop before a matinée or after an evening show on a Friday or Saturday, when it stays open until 10pm. On Monday, Tuesday and Sunday it closes at 8pm, before most evening shows come down, so plan a pre-theatre visit on those nights.

An honest tip: if you are watching your sugar, skip the condensed milk dip. The churros are already coated in cinnamon sugar and the hot chocolate is sweetened with piloncillo, so the chocolate sauce alone is plenty. If you are sharing among a group, order an extra portion of churros rather than an extra hot chocolate: the drinks are rich and the churros go fast.

On nights when you would rather stay in, the shop delivers through Deliveroo and Uber Eats, and Deliveroo carries the full menu, including the seasonal specials. Churros lose their crunch on a long delivery, so order from addresses close to Covent Garden. For a party or an office treat, the catering service brings churros and cinnamon sugar to the venue, which is the better option than ordering dozens of portions through an app.

Aguamiel opened on 28 March 2024, according to Hot Dinners, which reported the launch. Since then it has expanded beyond the shop: the website says it has made churros for Sony Music, Deckers and GAP, and it takes bookings for weddings, launches and office Fridays. That catering side is why you may see the team elsewhere in London, but the Wellington Street counter is the only shop.

Churros travel well for a few minutes but are best eaten hot. If you want somewhere to sit outside the shop, the market building and the piazza are a minute's walk away, and the benches around St Paul's Church garden on the west side of the market are quieter than the piazza itself. On a wet evening, the covered market arcades are the dry option.

From Covent Garden Tube station, walk down James Street to the market building, cross the piazza and continue down Wellington Street toward the Strand. Along the way, the Royal Opera House stands on Bow Street, and its upper-floor terrace bar has views over the market. At the bottom of Wellington Street, cross the Strand to reach Somerset House, whose courtyard becomes an ice rink in winter.

From Somerset House, Waterloo Bridge gives one of the best views of the Thames at dusk, looking toward St Paul's Cathedral and the City. Walking across the bridge with a takeaway hot chocolate on a clear, cold evening is one of the simple pleasures of a London winter. Waterloo station on the south side has trains and Tube lines home.

Address: Aguamiel, 24 Wellington Street, Covent Garden, London WC2E 7DD. Hours: Monday and Tuesday 12pm to 8pm, Wednesday and Thursday 12pm to 9pm, Friday and Saturday 12pm to 10pm, Sunday 12pm to 8pm. No phone number is published; delivery is through Deliveroo and Uber Eats, where the full menu appears. On the menu: churros with dulce de leche, condensed milk or chocolate dips, Mexican hot chocolate spiced with piloncillo, horchata, horchata cold brew, banana bread hotchata, café de olla and saritas. Nearest Tube: Covent Garden. Ask the Karpo APP for a pre-theatre dinner nearby.