Zazu — Restaurant in Iñaquito

Unquestionably Deserves a Michelin Star

Our motto is that we travel to eat. We came to Quito for a cruise to the Galapagos. For a variety of reasons, we spent three nights in Quito before the cruise. So, I went looking for a destination restaurant we could visit. I found the perfect destination at Zazu.

There is no doubt that if Michelin did a guide for Ecuador, Zazu would earn at least one star. I am trying to be conservative because I do not want to overstate, and my impression is the inspectors make you earn your stripes as a one-star before they will award you two stars.

As far as whether Zazu makes the mark as two-star by Michelin standards, I am not sure. Chef Wilson's creations are clearly at a two-star level. What I have some question about are what I will call fit and finish. We have very little insight what criteria Michelin inspectors apply in differentiating between one-, two-, and three-star restaurants. All we have to judge by are our experiences. We have visited 23 stared restaurants, primarily in Europe, and a few in San Francisco: eight 3-stars, seven 2-stars, and eight 1-stars.

So, what are my fit and finish questions? We have observed that as you move up in stars, the décor becomes more elaborate. But on the other hand, we thought about the minimalist décor at Tim Raue, a two-star in Berlin, and I find décor at Guy Savoy, a three-star in Paris, to be downright cold (and we love both of those restaurants). Zazu`s décor is classy but modest. I just do not know how it would strike an inspector.

Also, as you move up in stars, the staff become more experienced and polished. I have to interject so you do not get the wrong impression. Service was excellent. The staff was warm, friendly, attentive, prompt, professional--overall excellent. So, let me try to explain my point with one little anecdote. We knew we wanted the tasting menu. We particular enjoy tasting menus when they offer wine pairings with the courses. We asked the initial waitperson whether they offer wine pairings. She was momentarily confused, bux t then sought the help of a colleague. Her colleague put together pairings that were well matched and fairly priced. A very minor and inconsequential event—my observation is quite persnickety. But again, while I would say the staff at Tim Raue were generally more polished, they also seemed a bit harried, and served us one elaborate mixed-at-the-table “pairing” without explaining that it was to accompany the next course. We ignorantly concluded that it was the next course and drank it.

Chef Wilson is accomplishing near miracles. Let's compare and contrast a chef in New York City with Chef Wilson. Any ingredient, wine, knickknack, anything the New York chef wants is an hour away. Chef Wilson crafts his creations with ingredients that are also an hour away—and they scream freshness, but everything the world might offer is not already sitting on a shelf somewhere in Quito like it is in New York. Similarly, my guess is the Quito labor pool does not present Chef Wilson with three seasoned fine dining waiters with 10+ years of experience to select from when he has an opening. He has to train his own raw recruits in all the nuances of dealing with a fine dining clientele.

In closing, if you visit Zazu on a one time visit to Quito, order a Guinea Pig course. It is an Ecuadorian delicacy. Oh and about the pictures, we eat early. Most people, and I believe that goes double for south Americans, do not eat as early. We actually arrived a few minutes before their official opening time. The restaurant was actually sold-out the night...

They simply spoiled my birthday. Food: tasting menu with add-on cuy (+10 usd). Out of 6 dishes 3 were bad, other 2 - very average, the only egg was tasty. I did not get a desert, so have no any idea if it is good or not. Cost of such “beautiful” complex was 105 usd.

Cevice - absolutely no any flavor or combination of flavors which is actually expected from such fine dining tasting menu concept. It was just salty and nothing else.

Cuy - piece of it was simply overfried, ravioli from it was just plain.

Last dish was with beef, unfortunately don’t remember the name. They brought burnt meat.

Another dish with something pinkish speared on the plate and few very slim slices of ‘today’s’ catch - well, i truly tried to understand the sense of this dish or find combination of flavors, unfortunately I didn’t succeed. Absolute nonsense.

Overall, absolutely not fine dining taste, flavor and quality. More than that, I have never had burnt meat served in the restaurants. This dish was sent back to kitchen, and I have never got any replacement for that.

Service - well.. well.. from the beginning it was a challenge.

WhatsApp- they took more than 24 hours to reply. No details, no questions. Extremely basic communication.

Website chat - no reply at all

Waiters - very basic skills. Not attentive at all. Don’t know simple “waiter” routine things. Leave customers without attention for long time. I literally needed to ask for water 4 times (they keep glass bottles of water at the separate table and refill customer’s glasses) at the end of so called dinner I had my glasses for water and wine empty for more than 15 minutes. Asked again for water twice and at the end of the story needed to go to that ‘water’ table to refill my glass.

Overall service is bad, slow, without any interest or passion or proper attention.

When I expressed my disappointment for food, all waiters simply disappeared. I needed to walk out to another room to ‘find’ them. When I asked to call the duty manager, one person came and said he was a manager. When I asked to show me his badge with his designation, he brought another man and said that this person was a manager. On my question why he lied to me, he could only say “sorry”, and no any explanation was given.

End of the story: I insisted to talk to GM or the owner. This telecom happened. However it took too long time from the staff for that as they simply tried to tell me stories that ‘they don’t know owner”, “they have no contacts”, etc. So hopefully GM will do something to change the situation.

And yes, I paid over 100 backs for such dinner on my birthday. With all disappointment, waste of time. I never got any replacement for burnt dish or desert but payment was in full.

Note: at the same time other guests sent 2 dishes back to the kitchen as they were not good.

Conclusion: overrated restaurant, not fine dining standards, needs a lot of things to be revisited, reviewed and...

Zazu is an amazing restaurant, made even better by the fantastic service. Viviana & Camila took care of us throughout the meal. They were most courteous & attentive, exceptionally knowledgeable about the menu, and essential in helping us out with ordering. They made us feel very special and valued. To begin with, the restaurant has a preset menu with some items that were not part of the general fare. However, it turned out that we could freely order any of the items we liked.

The food taste and presentation were superior. In the beginning of the meal, we were served an amuse-bouche of roasted cauliflower in aji sauce, it was delicious and very pretty. The house bread was warm and fresh, served with a bit of whipped butter For starters we ordered Foie Gras and Ceviche de Pescado. The foie gras was fried duck liver, which is uncommon even in France (usually, it is basically cold sliced pate). It was absolutely marvelous, perfectly cooked to a medium rare, with just the right flavoring as to not to take away from the natural taste, it was served with a little mash of eggplant? with a bit of sauté onion and sauce, the mash had a bit of sharp taste. The ceviche was served in a very unusual way, it was thinly slied corvina sashimi style, over pink sauce (a bit gelatinous), crunches & buttons of yellow sauce. Viviana explained to us what everything was, but we were so entranced with the way the dish looked, that unfortunately, I forgot what she said…

For the main course, we had Jackson Pollack fish of the day and Duck Confit. We were somewhat confused about the fish dish, but it all became quite clear once it arrived to the table. It actually looked like a piece of modern art and tasty one too! The fish was corvina, very nice thick piece, that was, again, perfectly cooked. It was moist and juicy, the mixture of the sauces was very interesting and the crunches of mixed grains that accompanied the fish were very good. We ordered a side of mashed potatoes in addition to the hot plates, and it turned out to be a great choice, because we could dip the potatoes in the sauce. The Duck Confit was very good, generally we prefer a duck breast, but the leg was very tasty in sweet sauce with veggies.

We really enjoyed our meal at Zazu. We wish that we have discovered it a little earlier during our stay, so that we would have time to visit it again, but I guess, we will have to come back to...