Death’s Heads, flowers and crucifixes all smashed up with a few coats of your favourite technicolour paint; it shouldn’t really work, should it? Well, certainly not if you put it like that, but any sentence beginning with the words “death’s heads” is going to grab attention, just like the design vernacular of Mexico itself. Now, there is one race who knows how to both celebrate colour and laugh in the face of the cheapness of death, and there’s nothing quite like a fit-out that’s vaguely reminiscent of a Day of the Dead ofrenda to make you feel a little bit alive, even if you are in New Zealand, at a suburban mall … in Albany.

Some people profess that they would rather be dead than venture to Westfield Albany for entertainment. In many instances these querulous folk would have a fair point. That said, a visit to Mama Loco’s proves there are exceptions to any rule. This Mexican-themed venue sits on the northern fringe of the mall. It’s aspect is rather sunny, with pleasant, elevated views out over the Albany Lakes Civic Park (surely the best thing that ever happened to this suburban outpost). It’s here on the terrace that death’s head first rears its ugly, well, head, in the form of imitation (but made in New Zealand) Cape Cod chairs with skull-like cut-outs. Cruciform-shaped, custom-made benches round out the outdoor seating options, while tabletops sit on brightly coloured drums, powder-coated miniatures of the 44 gallon version, which are usually seen surrounded by a gaggle of bums, warming their hands on a cold winter’s night. Well, in the movies, anyway. Lovelace & Co were the designers enlisted to instil Mama Locos with its Mexican theme. As a rule, theme bars and restaurants, almost without regard to the actual theme, tend to veer towards cheap stereotypes.

The success of this joint is that the designers have taken the idea of Mexico, its colours and some of its motifs, and plied them with some graphic edginess before applying them to different surfaces. Hence lampshade inners depict skulls with bright-red lips sitting comfortably amidst pink bears and indeterminate botanical species. The tops of stools feature interesting geometrical patterns and the custom-designed wallpaper seems abstract enough to warrant further use on a psychoanalyst’s deck of Rorschach cards. (“What does this look like? A Mexican walking fish?”) The pièce de résistance at this bar is also the opening gambit. A long, flower-adorned bar is an attention grabber from the footpath. The flowers, faux Mexican marigolds, another staple of the ofrenda, sit behind glass but atop illustrations with a clear Mexican influence. From here, customers can split either right or left – the building envelope is long and linear, with colourful mixed-seating options either way. The natural inclination of customers must be to the right, I think, towards the giant mural of a woman’s face, perhaps the mysterious Mama herself. Here again are the colours of Mexico, but without the cliché.