La Parrilla Plaza La Isla — Restaurant in Cancún

This review is from 3 separate experiences here within 24 hours. Part 1: We first arrived with some friends who happened to be on the island at the same time, and picked this restaurant at random. From the moment we arrived we were treated like family and shown to our table. We first ordered drinks and the waiter came out with them stacked 4 drinks high on top of his head. It was awesome. The drinks were good quality and strong enough. We ordered food and it was served in a timely manner with good presentation, only to be outdone by the taste. I had the shrimp enchiladas. Our friends and my wife and I took a few photo ops in the restaurant as well. Our waiter snapped a few group shots for us, and we all went separate ways. Part 2: We get back to the resort around 11:30pm and my wife cannot find her phone. We eventually realized it must have been left on the table when we got up to take photos at the restaurant, but the restaurant was closed. I ended up calling the restaurant around noon the next day from Xplor in Xcaret while we were on an all day excursion. I was able to get right through to our waiter and they had the phone in the office. I told them I'd be there around 6pm that evening. Part 3: I arrived at 6:20pm, our waiter recognized me, but still made sure I could unlock the phone before letting me take it. He definitely earned the reward I gave him. I will highly recommend this restaurant to anyone for service, food, drinks, and the integrity...

The front desk staff of our hotel recommended a restaurant, but our taxi driver assured us that we'd have a more enjoyable time at La Parilla, which was close to it. He even told us to check out the restaurant, and if we didn't like how it looked, he'd take us to the one that the front desk suggested. We were fine here, so we gave the taxi driver a thumbs up. The inside looks very traditional, with an open area in the back. We sat at a table towards the front, and our server was very friendly. He also spoke English. They have Spanish/English menus. I had tacos and she had a burrito. The food was really good, along with the chips and salsa. The beer was cold, and she liked her "classic" margarita. They make different flavored margaritas as well. There's a sign outside for a buffet, where the food is served to you. We overlooked that, but the food on the buffet section looked pretty good. We saw a server walk with a margarita on his head. We mentioned that to our server, and he brought by Memito, who'd kind of a big deal there. He's a very nice gentleman, and even showed us a Tik Tok video of him balancing drinks during New Years Eve celebration. We had a great time here with authentic Mexican food, and we'll be sure to return on our next...

Nah this ain't it. It was literally the first and worst place we visited. Absolutely massive tourist trap.

I've had better food back home. Skip it.

I also want to elaborate on this post a bit more. This was recommended by hotel staff. I didn't know they only recommend this place thanks to the kickback they receive from the restaurant.

The rice, beans, tacos, beef and vegetables are below average. Cancun has an absolutely incredible food scene and some super great eats close enough to this restaurant for me to recommend to stay away.

The cost of the food here is also higher than average for surrounding places which is why I rated it so poorly.

You can have better food at the same price or same quality food at a lower price. As a tourist please don't make this your reference for what Cancun has to offer. Our trip was significantly better after this place.

They also have zero control of the vendors that pretend to pass themselves off as being with the restaurant to force you to purchase things.

So if you do end up at this restaurant if anyone offers you anything aside from food say no if you would like to not be charged or guilted into purchasing. Also I did not experience this outside of this one restaurant in our...