Xalavro Open Bar — Restaurant in Municipality of Heraklion

4,5/5 Stars Wow! We were impressed. A great interpretation of the Cretan cuisine and well done drinks. Check out the bustling environment on a Saturday night when everyone is out.

Olive oil was not just liquid but of a thicker consistence and served together with the bread perfect (even though they could improve on the bread they serve - a nice French sourdough bread would do so much better, I would even pay the extra charge for that) Sea brass was one of the most amazing fishes we had so far. Crispy fish on a cretean Mousse you will enjoy til the end tuna tartar was a yum as well, perfectly balanced with wasabi mayo we loved loved loved the atmosphere: green, bustling and just the right amount of light they have their DJ playing some really good music, we had to Shazam almost every one of them drinks were good

To be improved: fajitas would have been awesome if the tortillas would have been homemade and not pre-bought (tortillas are so easy to make and it makes such a difference when using corn flour instead of wheat flour)

Ordered a sparkling wine which, you could tell, was not fresh (if it has been sitting for a few days, it will lose on their sparkling. Just put a sticker on it and dump it if it is older than 3 days)

Conclusion: we would def. come back and recommend to everyone we know. This was the last dish on Crete and def. one...

Ordered our food very quickly, but I ordered a green tea and got some red fruity tea instead. My mother, brother, and I ordered a bunch of food, including tartare (which does not have to be cooked), and french fries. We ordered our food and waited nearly 40 minutes. We were not given any of our food in increments to pick on, like the tartare or french fries. The food did not appear to even be started a half hour into our waiting. A half hour into our waiting we saw a flame in the kitchen as if the cooks just began cooking our meals. Our waiter practically ignored us, he was talking to his coworkers and walking back and forth from the kitchen to the bar without ever speaking to us or even looking at us, he never assured us the food was coming and eventually told us the food would be out in two minutes after we asked him why it was taking so long. Ten minutes after he told us it would be two more minutes, my family left because waiting almost 40 minutes for food is ridiculous and we had somewhere we needed to be. We walked into the restaurant hungry, and left even hungrier. As we were leaving the waiter tried showing us that the bao buns we ordered were ready, but I know they don’t take 40 minutes to make and there was no sign of our french fries or even raw food. We ended up having to eat at our hotel which got our food out to us in less than...

I just had a wonderful lunch at Xalavro open bar.

At the beginning I was a bit disappointed that my pancetta/pork belly was not well rendered. (It looked great, but The meat was very fatty with no crispy layer. When i asked if they could put it back in the pan for a while, to crisp up, that was not possible. Maybe it is a cultural thing, but in Holland chefs never have a problem to give it some more heat/cooking.

It was a shame, because the flavours were absolutely there. I had to leave my pancetta.

Luckily the manager noticed and asked me if i wanted something else of the menu. I felt a bit doubtful but luckily he convinced me.

I then had the tuna tartar, which was the best I ever had. It was so well balanced and refined! Absolutely delicious!

Finally i got a beautiful orange flavoured crème brûlée on the house. The pancetta wasn’t charged either.

I want to give the staff and the manager a big thumbs up for spinning this around. At first I wanted to leave asap. But now I am looking forward to come back with friends and to try the other dishes.

Thank you! And compliments to the chef for his outstanding...