Restaurante Creta — Restaurant in Medellín

Only been open a few weeks so they are still shaking out the kinks.

It is a lovely restaurant, very comfortable plush chairs. Service was excellent with everyone working together. The architectural motif was Moorish or Moroccan even though the menu is Mediterranean.

The chef is from Mexico and is trying to come up with a way to serve the Mediterranean cuisine with authentic spices and stay in business. That is because most Colombians prefer their food bland. They don’t even like salt and pepper on the table.

In my mind this cultural preference for bland food without any bite, heat or spices is really hurting the development of fine dining in the country.

Foreigners and some Colombians who have traveled and educated their palates have developed a taste for spicy food. The vast majority won’t even try it.

Trying to find good Chinese, Thai, or Indian food is a challenge. Even American chains like P. F. Chang’s have “turned off the flavor” and blanded down their entire menu.

So I was impressed that the chef here was able to preserve the flavors of the cuisine without making the food noticeably “picanté”.

I enjoyed a healthy portion of mousaka with cordero (lamb) that was hearty, flavorful, and served with layers of cheese (two kinds: Gouda and another milder cheese) and ground fresh lamb. They also offer a vegetarian version of this dish.

I also had grilled artichokes stuffed with cheese, rich with lentils, and tasted my friends lentil soup and falafel. All delicious. They served complementarybaskets of freash home made pita bread with excellent smooth tasty hummus. It was so good we all had to try not to fill up on the bread.

They did not as yet have their liquor license but we knew in advance and brought our own Wine and paid a modest corkage.

They also serve a concoction of carbonsted water, fruit juices, and chunks of fruit served in a big goblet with a salted rim. Not too sweet but very refreshing. It comes in red (strawberries and other fruits), yellow (passion fruit and pineapple) and green (kiwi, apple and pear)

We had a group of close to 20 people. The only hitch was the food comes out when it is ready, so they do need to work on the smoothness and order of courses. But they have only been open two weeks and chef has a lot of training to do with a very eager staff.

I left stuffed. No room for deserrts but chef gave everyone a small tablespoon sized taste of one of their desserts and it was also very good.

Reasonable prices. Reservation recommended. #picante #spicy...

Went to the restaurant the first weekend it opened to try it out and was disappointed with the food. They brought some bread they made in their oven and hummus dip when we arrived. The bread was very plain and the Hummus terrible. We ordered the Eggplant and Cauliflower appetizer. The eggplant was cut into potato chip size, deep fried, and was soggy and flavorless, the cauliflower though was better. We ordered a Fatoush salad with salmón. The feta cheese in the salad was not rich and tangy and the dressing was weak and the salmon was totally dried out. We then had the chicken Kabobs which were served with grilled eggplant onions and potatoes. The chicken was dried out and the grilled vegetables had no seasoning. We also ordered the saffron rice and it was very strange kind of lumpy and fried versus light and fluffy..They also did not have steak kabobs only ground beef.

The decor of the restaurant was very nice and the service attentive however if they can’t even get the Hummus right along with the other dishes I’m not sure how long they will last. Additionally their pricing was a bit on the high side. There are much better restaurants serving the same type of food in the barriós of Patio Bonito and Provenza. I was very disappointed as I live a five minute walk away and was hoping to find a good Mediterranean restaurant nearby. Maybe things will get better upon receiving...

Really beautiful decoration and atmosphere, but there’s an echo which is annoying if you have some loud crew sitting in the circular area. One guy’s repeated high pitched laughter was quite startling many times throughout our dinner which was actually initially funny, but got to be disruptive after multiple times in. The service was great in explaining things and answering questions, but our order came in wrong.. it was corrected and we did receive an apology which is ok because mistakes happen, but that tells me a little more organization is needed. The food was really great, especially the meats. They were juicy and tender just as they should be. The appetizers were more on the average side, but not terrible. I wished the appetizers were seasoned with a slightly heavier hand. Creta was eons better than Hummus restaurant which we had tried out a day prior. So coming off that disappointing experience, Creta was AMAZING! I would put this place up there in second place, just below Assalam restaurant in comparison to other Mediterranean places we tried out in town. Albeit this place being much pricier of all our exploration, it was understandable due to its formal atmosphere. This is a nice place to have a fancier family dinner or to take an important...