Hacienda Santa Teresa — Restaurant in Bradford West Gwillimbury

Who knew one of the best Mexican spots in the GTA would be all the way up in Bradford? And by best, I'm not adding any qualifiers around value or location or specific food or any of that. Hacienda Santa Teresa is flat out one of the best we have.

I've been here a couple of times over the span of only a couple of weeks, making that hour plus drive just to experience a bit of Mexico. While I'm not just talking about the food, let's start there. Over 2 visits, we've had: Complimentary chips and salsa: Yes, these are worth mentioning because they are brought to you as soon as you sit down, are crispy-salty (chips) and tangy-dippy (salsa) in all the right ways, and are endless. Ceviche de Camaron: Shrimp ceviche done right. Good amount of shrimp, great level of tart with the lime juice. Quesadilla: Good 'toast' to the flatbread, great amount of cheese. And you can choose what filling to put. We got cochinita (marinated pulled pork with a paste that was tasty without being overly spicey), carne asada (grilled beef was pretty tender), carne molida (ditto with the ground beef), and chicken (a tad dry) Flautas: Fried tortillas were well crisped, and again you can choose your filling. I got it with cinchinita and think I love the pulled pork even more. Churro Ice Cream Sandwich: The churros were well done (fried oily goodness all the way), but even the strawberry icecream was surprisingly good! Plantain with Condensed Milk: Doesn't seem like something to order but this was a showstopper. I just kept dunking all those fried plantains into that thick sweetness of the condemned milk over and over!

But besides the amazing food, the atmosphere itself is great. Hacienda Santa Teresa aims to make your meal there a celebration. With its fun music and colorful murals, but most importantly because of the ready smiles and attentive helpfulness of the servers, you feel the joy and energy of Mexican hospitality everytime you go there. We will definitely...

My husband and I came here for the first time the other day.

Service: The service was great, food came quick and the staff were very kind and friendly.

Atmosphere: Decor was authentic and made us feel like we were in Mexico, however, the bathrooms were filthy and other areas like the windowsills were also not very clean. More attention to detail in those areas would go a long way. Table was clean.

Food: The food was very good. The only thing I think would have made the tacos better would have been some kind of a sauce or tomatoes etc. I found just the meat with the shell was good, but could have had more oomph with some toppings/more spices. It wasn't super flavourful. We loved the nachos with the bean dip (which came free). We also tried the sope, which tasted really fresh. The Mexican corn was the most flavourful thing we tried (strong lime and salty flavour) and it was excellent. If you like spicy things, be sure to ask for the hot sauce! The hot sauce had a great flavour. The tacos and sope we got were part of a menu item that was developed to raise money for the family of a friend of theirs that passed away. I thought that was very sweet and was happy to support through choosing that menu option.

Overall, food and service was great but the atmosphere (bathroom cleanliness especially) would make the experience better. We will likely go back and try them again, maybe it was...

We arrived around 7pm, were sat inside where it was loud and incredibly hot. We ordered an appetizer but the restaurant only became warmer and pounder. When we asked to move outside to the patio, our server moved us outside without issue. After being sat on the patio, a different server took our drink order and it arrived over 20 minutes later. After this, a different man came and took our food order. We received our guac we ordered, but continued to wait for our food. 2 different servers came out, one asking if we were enjoying everything and we explained we hadn’t received our food yet, and the second asking if we wanted anything else to eat. We explained to this second server we hadn’t even received our main food yet, which had been ordered almost an hour ago at this point. After she didn’t return, my fiance went inside and asked if our food could be made as takeout as it was getting late. He was rude and said “well it’s coming out now” to which my fiance explained we still want it as takeout. After another 20 minutes, we received out food. The bill was brought by and when this man realized my drink wasn’t on it, instead of offering it as compensation, he returned with a new bill. No one ever apologized to us and we left angry. Do not believe the reviews about kind and good service, when the restaurant is busy it seems that goes...