Puerto Bravo — Restaurant in Toronto

Another 3.5. Not quite a 4 due to price, but still worth visit or two!

The initial reaction was "omg! This smells just like Mexico!" It was a wonderful nostalgic flashback and not something that common in Canada. We were SUPER excited at that point. Also, it's really difficult to find truly authentic Mexican fare on the east side. You can tell this Mexican food by Mexican people.

Except it falters a bit in how it is trying to appeal to the bland and unadventurous Canadian palate. No cilantro on anything?! It's crazy. So many of the dishes could have had so much more flavour had they not been afraid of scaring off Canadians who are way too accustomed to bad Tex-Mex. The street corn dish was severely lacking. We added in our own spice, lime, and cilantro which greatly improved it. On its own, I wouldn't write home about it. The tacos are tasty enough, but again, lacking in cilantro and spice and full of Canadian ingredients. Nothing like taco stands in Mexico City. Way too many onions. The octopus was basically all onions. The octopus was nicely grilled though. The avocado they said was on it was practically negligible! A teeny little single slice. The asada taco was a lot of onions and cabbage(?).

I get they are doing more high-end tacos here then a cheap Mexican street stand, but there needs to be a variety of flavours then. And less of this "Asian fusion" thing every restaurant here seems to think they need.

And the tostada was not good. Firstly it took FOREVER for some reason. An unreasonable amount of time for a tostada when they are not busy. I don't know how/where they make/buy the tortillas for them but it tasted stale.

They do get points for having a significant percentage of Spanish speakers come in, so they must be doing something right! Maybe I just don't get it. And the server/cashier was very lovely.

The part that really gets me is the prices though. They are very expensive for what you get. I know rent & food prices are soaring for us and restaurants alike, but it was a little crazy to pay $15 for 1 tostada. And $9 for a single taco. I could understand better if they used ingredients like nopales, but these were mainly regular veg from here. I don't mind paying more for a great tasting meal that fills me up. This didn't quite do it, and for the price, I had high expectations.

I hope this place does well, and I think it can. But the prices are a bit insane. And the flavours are not great...yet. Maybe they know better and that is what boring Canadians want from tacos, but it's a shame when I can tell they have all the ability to make great Mexican food but are holding back. I will return at some point. I really want to give this...

I had to write this review before too much time passes. This gem of a restaurant was referred to us by our daughter. 1425 Puerto Bravo on Gerrard. It's worth the trip to see what I'm saying. Our entire family are truly foodies. Simply, we don't like the white glove affair, yet we do expect and demand that the food we eat is fresh with flavours that compliment one another. The presentation is inviting. The menu is relatively small but I understand why. I believe the owners ensure their menu choices are spectacular. No, 25 page menu from A to Z. That in itself would make we run for the hills. They specialize in Mexican food. Do we not eat with our eyes first? Automatically, we judge the food that is placed in front of us before we take our first bite. We already have decided if the food is going to be great or not. From the first bite, the tastes of all ingredients compliment one other that bounce around and off your tongue. We had 3 Tacos, Ceviche and a sponge cake dessert, lightly sweet with icing of that was unexpected. A pleasant surprise. We will return again with no doubt in our minds. I will guarantee that you, you will love the food here! I can't forget to compliment our server ~ who was so pleasant and helpful. ...

My friends and I decided to partake in this restaurant over the weekend, and we were met with some mixed results. Our server, though rather pleasant and professional, had some language barriers which led to some serious mishaps with our order. Quantities were skewed on some of our items and an item was absent entirely. Even the time it took to receive a first round of waters was notably inefficient. A small fraction of the dishes’ quality was a little disappointing, but overall quite satisfactory and delicious. When it came time for our cheque, we requested that we would prefer to split the order between the two couples that were present. The representative for the establishment explained they were unable to accommodate this request and could only split the grand total of the bill two ways. Not a substantial inconvenience, but just seemed like a perplexing incapability and further diminished our already rocky experience. There were some redeeming factors to this visit, but overall my group was left frazzled and unfulfilled...