Restaurante Milpa Holbox — Restaurant in Isla Holbox

PLEASE DO NOT DINE HERE - it is a waste of time and money. I made the mistake of booking dinner for my family (my partner and three kids, ages 9, 11 and 13 years old). We live in NYC and travel extensively and know a thing or two about good food. A quality coursed meal does not need to be fancy, expensive or in an over-the-top restaurant. I pride myself in trying to experience an array of local cuisine when I travel - we had our share of street tacos and marquesitas while we stayed in Holbox for a week. We also seek out what we hear to be "the best" restaurants in town. Milpa was mentioned several times. We made the reservation days in advance and had to put a 10% deposit down in advance via Paypal to secure our New Year's Eve meal. When we arrived for our 7p reservation, the front door was locked and the hostess rolled up, unlocked the door and went in to turn on lights and set our table - might I note that our meal was a $95 USD pre-fix meal. My family and I took turns going to the bathroom to wash our hands (Covid life!). My boys returned from the bathroom to tell me there was NO RUNNING WATER in the bathroom! WHAT!? I checked, and yes, it's true. Against my better judgement ("I wonder if they have running water in the kitchen and the ability for their staff to WASH HANDS regularly?!"), we stayed. My partner and I both ordered glasses of wine... it took about 15 min to arrive. At around 7:40p (40 minutes after our meal began), our 1st "course" arrived. There was a piece of toasted baguette, a small bit of fruit jam and a sprig of dill. Literally this was it. I looked at it, looked at my kids and our jaws dropped open. We are paying nearly $100 US dollars to dine in MEXICO and they have the audacity to send us bread, jam and dill as our first course! We ate it (because we were starving!!! and it was also New Years' Eve so it would be hopeless to find a place to dine if we walked out), and I immediately felt like I'd made a TERRIBLE mistake selecting this restaurant. Course 2... it arrived about 1 hour later... 60 min later. The 2nd course arrived - 2 dishes for 2 kids, about 10 minutes passed and another 2 dishes of the same 2nd course arrived for myself and my third son. NO SECOND COURSE EVER ARRIVED FOR MY PARTNER. We kept waiting, but only 4 dishes (for 5 people) arrived to the table for our 2nd course. It was a tiny, over-cooked mushy, mini-squash and the hostess poured oat milk on top of the squash. I'm sure the oat milk came out of a tetrapak. There was ZERO flavor to the dish. By this point, we were all miserably hungry and had been seated for almost 2 hours. My blood was boiling so much that I probably had steam coming out of my ears. I decided to wait for the entree... yet again, because I wasn't sure we'd be able to find a place to eat this far into New Years' Eve. We were finally at two hours and 15 minutes into our meal, and STILL no entree (we each had the choice between langoustine and pork). After seeing another table walk out on their meal, I scanned the room and the tables seated outside... I almost fell out of my chair: when I looked at everyone dining at Milpa at this point in the evening, NOT ONE PERSON... literally NOT ONE PERSON had food at the table in front of them. This is supposed to be the best possible restaurant to dine in in the entirety of Holbox!! WHAT?!?! I got up, walked over to the hostess and told her our night was over. Truly, this was the WORST dining experience of my life. Then... they had the audacity to ask us to pay in full for the meal (which I did). PLEASE DO NOT WASTE YOUR MONEY HERE! As a NYC resident, I fully understand the gravity of struggle for restaurants and their staff. I've seen how scrappy, gritty and resiliently NYC restaurants have evolved and risen to meet the regulations thrown at them. Mexico continues to allow outdoor and indoor, distanced dining. They have more opportunities than most to adapt to our new normal. How the chef here at Milpa sleeps at night when charging $100 USD for his garbage food is beyond me. If I could give zero...

Went here because they had a special menu for a thanksgiving.

BAM! Can I say OMG! I did not pick the place nor do any research so was I pleasantly surprised to see, taste and experience this place.

The architecture alone is beautiful, the chef btw designed it. The atmoshere was quite and very tropical laid back.

Then comes the food and presentations. I have been and eaten around the world. You name the country and I’ve been there eaten there. Michelin star in France to local pub middle of know where England, this place is on its way to making the Michelin star list.

The meticulous efforts and touch the chef puts on every dish, you can watch him in his open kitchen. I looked at my friends and said “how did you know about this place?” She didn’t, we got lucky. 🤗

The service was amazing, they chose the wine and it was served perfect with the perfect chill! The food was delivered perfectly and timely.

The food, OMG! First, the chef has taken thanksgiving dinner to an entire new level, one that I’ve never seen or tasted. BTW - last year I went a top rated French restaurant in ATL for thanksgiving and they didn’t come close to Milpa.

The creamy mash potatoes, amazing. The gravy - bam. Turkey so moist. The desert, holy cow, pumpkin pie. My girlfriend before we got there was complained the whole time how she hates pumpkin. I said fine I’ll eat yours. When she saw the presentation she immediately changed her mind and ate all of it.

Is it expensive, yes, but you get what you pay for. The atmosphere, food and service. This island is lucky to have this level of restaurant.

This place is amazing, I will probably go back tonight just to try other dishes.

To the owners - work on your menu style, the menu does not come close to describing the level of your food. Example the thanksgiving menu reads like a cheap hotel buffet menu but obviously you’re food is at a whole...

Food: We went here because the line at Luuma was very long and this place has great reviews, too. The dinner started with a free drink and a small free zucchini soup (which only tasted like butter). For the main course we had steak and shrimps - both looking really amazing. Sadly, most of the ingredients are only added for the looks and doesn't really harmonize or add anything special to the dish. The steak, ordered medium, was well done and very thin. We still kept it because it was getting late and we were very hungry.

!!!!SCAM!!!! When we received the check, the prices of several items we ordered were wrong. For each dish and drink they charged up to 30 pesos additionally. When we saw the check, we weren't really sure about it, but we checked the prices again when we went outside and had another look at the menu. Unfortunately we didn't have the receipt to prove it... but it definitely was a scam and somewhat a creative way to increase the tip. Therefore, we would not recommend to visit this restaurant. Or at least, check the check twice! We don't think that this kind of scam is appropriate for a restaurant in this price category.

To sum up, we are very disappointed because we had higher expectations due to the good reviews and the fact this restaurant is one of the more expensive ones in Holbox. The food looked fancier than it actually tasted and the scam...