Frida Mexicana — Restaurant in Fremantle

We recently had a highly disappointing experience at Frida Mexicana during a birthday celebration for my best friend. The evening began with confusion as we were initially seated at a table far too small for our group, requiring us to be relocated. While understandable, this set the tone for the evening.

Despite pre-ordering a few bottles of wine and starters, only the wine arrived promptly. Every subsequent drink took between 30-45 minutes, and the starters arrived an hour after ordering (corn ships with guacamole and some potatoes). After receiving our entrees, we ordered our main courses, which took another 1.5 hours to arrive. As someone with many years of experience in hospitality, I understand that things can go wrong—perhaps the staff was inexperienced or the kitchen was having an off night. However, what happened next was completely unacceptable.

At around 8:20 pm as we sang a birthday song, the manager abruptly approached us, asking us to quiet down because another table's children needed to sleep. This situation quickly escalated, and when we requested a private conversation with the manager, we were met with further disappointment.

Rather than addressing the issue professionally, the manager deflected responsibility by stating that he had only just arrived and wasn’t present earlier in the evening, implying fault with his own staff. His comment that "the man wanted to fight" in reference to the guests and their kids at the other table was particularly inappropriate. No effort was made to de-escalate the situation, offer an apology, or provide any gesture of goodwill, such as a complimentary dessert, which could have easily diffused the tension.

To make matters worse, when we received the bill, we discovered that the wine had been charged twice, despite being paid for upfront. Upon further review at home, we realized that the starters had also been charged again. My friend has since reached out via email but has yet to receive a response.

This feedback is intended as a critique of the management’s handling of the situation, not a personal attack. We left deeply disappointed and feel this experience reflected poorly on the restaurant's...

Chill vibes. Good variety of music, and friendly staff. Food was a bit hit & miss though. Definitely try the beef taco's! We were a family of 3, dining for lunch. We ordered a variety of 'starters'/smaller plates & the 3 piece taco's, to share. We love a variety of foods when dining out, and also find this is the best way to first assess an eatery if it's going to become a regular for us. We had the Elite/Corn cobs (2-pieces), the Ceviche (2-pieces), the corn fritters (5-pieces), the alitas de polo/chicken wings (4-pieces), the empanadas (2-pieces), & the beef carnita tacos (3-pieces). We had 1 guava soda, 1 lemonade, and 1 sol' beer. Our total was $127. Needless to say, it's not a budget friendly restaurant. But for us, Mexican cuisine is a treat, & something we're happy to pay more money for when it's done well. The taco's were great, good flavours, fresh and a decent size. Another favourite were the corn fritters, and they were a decent portion size, good flavours here too. For us, good Mexican food is all about opening up the palate, and filling it with a combo of zesty, smokey, and spicy flavours! The Ceviche really missed the mark here. There was no zest. Lumps of fish within a heavily guacamole flavoured topping on a crispy corn chip type item. Small size for the cost, and really lacking seasoning/flavours. The empanadas were ok, the flavour was smokey and nice, but the 'pastry' was heavy with oil. Perhaps the fryer oil was due for a change, or too cold? The corn cobs had No flavours at all, except the char from the grill. We normally absolutely love Mexican corn, because it's smokey, juicy, and so morish! These were dry, no taste, and just grilled, with wayyyyy too much cheese on top, which is all we could taste. We didn't finish the two on the serve. The chicken wings were crispy, which was nice, but again, not alot of flavour. My lemonade tasted odd, cheap, and basically flat? So, a couple of winner's. But, largely a bit of a let down. We were the only other table of diner's in the restaurant around 1pm, yet our food took 25-minutes to come out. Would we go back? For $127, no. Which is a real shame, because I'd heard such...

This place has the potential, the potential to be the best Mexican restaurant in fremantle. But it's management is letting it down. We booked weeks ago and were told it would be inconvenient for us to order from the menu for a group of 20. So we had to settle for a set menu. On arrival none was explained to us that the set menus are for sharing, so our $40 menu got us a choice of sharing the totopos/corn chips, much later they brought out sweet Korean tasting chicken wings, and were not told it was a sharing plate that allowed us two chicken wings each Or one piece of corn. The 3 tacos each came much much later. Our dessert choice consisted of, Churros or a Mexican fried cheesecake, however there was no cheesecake about it, it was a fried apple pop over. If you ran out of cheesecake say so. Don't sell Mexicans a substitute. Next time I would like my set menu served individually, to myself, with food this good why would you make me share? Also of it says dessert, it means as per your instructions, that I get a choice between both, why did you ask one of us to pay extra for the pop over just because it wasn't vegan, and so to your staff, not part of the vegan platter? Latinos can make these at home, we are happy to go out to eat for the atmosphere and the community of getting together. We are all about eating till we're food comatosed, we would have appreciated the chance. On a different note, The food and it's flavors were magnificent. My compliments to the Chef.

Edit: I didn't appreciate your "manager" blind siding my sister in law (who made the booking) with a call on Father's Day demanding an explanation of my experience. Girl, take responsibility. I hope you become better as a manager, you're letting...