It’s London’s most lauded taqueria. Why are staff leaving in droves?

“People are being used by Satan to try and destroy me,” huffs a defiant Manolo de la Torre, the celebrated owner of cult Peckham taqueria, Guacamoles.

It wouldn’t be the first time he’s faced down a threat. De la Torre fled his hometown of Veracruz in 2022, after waking from a night of partying to a deluge of frantic Whatsapp messages. The Jalisco New Generation Cartel had just shot his cousin dead, he learned. Now they were coming for him. 

After running the gauntlet of the UK’s asylum system, what de la Torre did next is typically told as a success story — a divine tale of triumphing against the odds. A brief pop-up in Hounslow saw him open Guacamoles in late 2024. Swooning reviews in the Financial Times and popular food newsletter Vittles soon trumpeted Guacamoles as the finest tacos in London, establishing de la Torre as the charismatic face of modern Mexican food in the capital. For far too long, Mexican food in London had been underwhelming, a rare black spot on the city’s culinary map. Now it finally had its saviour.  

But over the past year, strange and accusatory posts have started to surface online. “He treats all of his employees like sh!” [sic], wrote one person on Reddit recently, accusing de la Torre of confecting a loveable persona — that of Taco Manny, an avuncular, techno-loving restaurateur — to his customers and the media, whilst showing a far nastier self to his staff. The comments soon piled on, accusing de la Torre of everything from ripping off his customers to cooking in unsanitary conditions.