Tacos, nachos, quesadilla, guacamole – not a single one appears on the menu at Newtown’s newest Mexican restaurant, Comedor. If you want a foil-wrapped burrito, there’s Guzman y Gomez up the road. But if you’re looking for fresh, flavourful Mexican fare in a sleek, refined setting, you’ve come to the right place.

Comedor is named after the word for “dining room”, and this one is particularly stunning. The restaurant is housed in a 100-year-old warehouse and it shows, with high ceilings, exposed rafters and whitewashed brick walls. The elongated space is flanked by an almost 5m stone bar, where diners sit side-by-side, sharing pina coladas and kingfish tostadas. There’s none of the usual desert shades here, instead tonal contrasts of inky blues and butter yellows are inspired by German abstract artist Josef Albers.

Chef Alejandro Huerta treats the restaurant like a dining room also, dishing up inspired Mexican plates that blend family recipes with modern techniques, which he mastered at highflying fine diners like Noma in Copenhagen and Pujol in Mexico.

Our waiter informs us there’s a special lunch set menu for today, three courses for $35. Sorry, perdón? $35 for a three-course meal? Not even Guzman y Gomez can compete with that. The quick and cheap lunch option is inspired by the Mexico City tradition of “comida corrida”, often including multiple courses for a set price.

The food doesn’t disappoint either. The set menu starts with a crisp, bubbled tostada shell filled with habernero crema and translucent slivers of kingfish crudo. Next up, linguine pasta is stirred through with salsa macha, a Mexican chilli crisp made from roasted nuts and dried peppers. To finish, a cinnamon-dusted madeleine is dunked into spicy, hot chocolate sauce (and we clean up the remaining chocolate with a teaspoon, but you didn’t need to know that). It’s a perfect meal – the only thing you could possibly add would be a mandarin margarita, packed with juicy sweet citrus fruit and tempered with hot yellow chillies.

There’s plenty of great dishes to build out your order too. The mole coloradito is cooked on the stove for 12 hours, the colour and flavours changing daily depending on what produce is thrown in the pot. The warm, brown puddle is deliciously rich and fruity with earthy chocolate notes and a smoky heat that hits the back of your throat first. Mop it up with the chargrilled vegetables or throw a couple of blue corn tortillas into the mix.

The drinks menu revolves around agave spirits like tequila and mezcal, alongside rarities like sotols and raicillas. Sip them neatly from the bar or try them in a tasting flight, which is cleverly matched to the set menu.

For dessert, a three leches cake is even sweeter than usual, thanks to ripe blended bananas. On top, a crumble of pistachio praline adds crunchy texture to the soft, condensed milk-soaked cake.

Whether you go for the lunch special or go all-out a la carte, Comedor is worth every peso.