Beluga - Cancún — Restaurant in Cancún

Beluga was the culinary highlight of our trip, among some very pleasant alternatives.

As in the entire zona turistica, the service was just top class, even compared to the best of Paris or London. Your table gets served like it has five pairs of eyes bound to it, yet you don’t notice any intrusions. Waiters are always available, they always take charge immediately and your request never waits. I especially loved being periodically served by waiters the dishes to share. We felt care.

I preferred Beluga over Harry’s or Porfirio’s (both excellent alternatives) because the music at Beluga is played live by a great DJ and it is not played crazy loud. If you’ve ever chewed with earplugs in (like I did at the other two restaurants), you know what I mean. Besides the sound, Beluga also has the most beautiful design of the three. And it’s probably slightly less expensive than the other two, but not by much.

My favorite dishes were the amazing lobster tacos, the coconut shrimp (though quite sweet), all the sauces and the corn with truffle. I did not get steak because plastic wrappers give me the ick. Steak should never be stored or presented in plastic foil, in my opinion.

One of the nicest surprises though was an Argentinian Chardonnay on the menu: Zapata Adrianna Vineyard White Stones. It’s a bargain among the world’s very best white wines (regularly scoring 100 points) and it wasn’t even overpriced at this restaurant. Unfortunately, the wine menu is very concise and only mentions this wine as “White Stones Chardonnay”. Also, the small English print on the menus does not work well with the dim lighting.

Families with young children, beware. The lagoon-side edge of the restaurant has no fencing or glass. It’s not that easy to get out of this water, let’s just say that. If you feel safe, sitting by the water will be the most charming memory.

I wish on everyone...

Okay okay.

This place is absolutely stunning, but dare I say the service is too much? It was constant, non stop asking moving it was never chill, relaxing, i felt like it was constant nagging of this and that what do you need what do you want instead of just letting us eat dinner in peace.

The ceviche was huge, ginormous, but what are you gonna do? Not eat it? Of course we ate it. Not typical ceviche though. There’s no broth. Just pure fish and seafood presented on a platter with some decoration. Wayyyy too much spicy sauce.

It paired well with the tostadas and the salsas given as a pre- app “bread basket” if you will.

Next- the oysters.. i am not sure who is shucking these bad boys but give them a lesson please. Incredibly messy looking shucking and the flavor is quite interesting. Why Japan? That is incredibly far and the lack of location for the area of Japan was interesting.

The drinks were not amazing, I am not sure if I received the end of the stick but it was very average for the flavor. The passion fruit was extremely overwelhming and felt like I was drinking straight sugar. Not good.

The tuna tartar looked a bit funky? Perhaps a little old? Tasted fine like soy sauce but jeez the seasoning and flavor needs to be worked on.

The surf and turf tacos were fine, but the short rib tacos were deeeelicious!!! Highly rec those. But why so many onions ??? LOL

They kept pushing for dessert saying it’s the “best thing” there at beluga… sorry what? Then open an ice cream shop.

Don’t preach oysters and seafood if it falls below average.

About $300 USD with 20% tip...

This place is only open 2 months and they are experiencing some teething problems. So let me run the good, and the bad by you…it’s a little long but you should know these things.

The good - The setting is outstanding. Fantastic entrance and foyer and the dining area sits out on the water. Huge louvered doors open up to a fantastic view. The decor is amazing. Their drinks are really cool too. Beef tongue was amazing, as was the octopus.

The bad - I’ve had a few ceviches in my time and this was not good. The shrimp was gray and translucent. They did not let it cure long enough. I sent it back. I couldn’t eat it. The coconut shrimp was over cooked and was tough and rubbery. The surf and turf taco was a bit grizzly. The AC ducting is the ceiling sweats and as a result drips onto the table. Unpleasant. The place was not busy so we had about 4 very enthusiastic waiters around our table, and they sort of loitered. It was quite off putting and took away from the experience. In addition we got the hard up-sale pitch, with suggestions on what we should eat.

Hey. If the head chef did a bit of work with the kitchen, the waiters were trained to dial it back a little and they fixed the AC issue. It would be 5 star all day long. Also do a better job with English translated menus

Maybe, just maybe...