Xokol — Restaurant in Jalisco

Xokol in one word is a magical culinary journey throughout ancient rustic Mexican cuisine, at higher quality ingredients with modern techniques that it doesn’t feel stuffy or over done. its hard to explain the whole experience since its one of a kind. it makes you feel like you are at your grandma’s house, but also makes you feel you are in a fancy Michellin started restaurant . The smell of the wood fired , The spices, the Umami Rich flavors flying on the air ! makes you forget about everything. Then you see on one side of the restaurant the orchestra of chefs and cooks making masterpieces of Michelin grade dishes with such a great passion and love ! that it almost makes you feel you are in a chef table in Alinea or eleven madison park. It brought me flashback and appreciate the simple things of life like a good fresh handmade tortilla with sea salt, just like my grandma used to give us while dinner was ready!! ( so thanks for that memory chef)

It was my second time and didn’t disappoint , came with my girlfriend and her sister and them being local i was able to blown them away, because they didn’t know about Xokol. For Food we ordered the Roasted oysters with Bone-marrow never thought about this combination and i thought it was so pretentious but i was wrong what a genius idea, probably one of the best roasted oysters i’ve ever had! actually i had to order a second round of those . We also tried the Mole blanco With Chayote ( Never thought a Vegetarian Dish could be this amazing. and would never order a vegetarian dish, on the first place but i was wrong again) , Hummus, Empanada with duck Confit and the Quesadilla with Chicken and Mole.

The wine list is small but has fantastic options to pair with all their food. i opted for a bottle of red Burgundy and it was outstanding. Had a beautiful bouquet of Red fruits and a very delicate, lean and juicy body follow by softs aromas of rose petals, cranberry, spices and oak yet had enough acidity to hold all the rich Moles and all the food we ordered .

When we thought we were done and thought everything was out of this world desserts arrived and took us to another dimension of flavors and textures!!! After visiting many restaurants in the US , London, France, Rome and Mexico city. i can confirm that Xokol is my favorite restaurant in this planet!! Thank you Chef and the whole Team at Xokol for making such an unforgettable and magical Dinner! Cant wait to visit you guys Soon!!

Ps ( Dont walk to Xokol…...

I'm sorry Xokol this was a very unpleasant experience (ambiance, food and service). After eating there many times over the years in both locations I cannot justify going back. We came on a night they were doing a pop up for a winery and there was zero information about the featured wines. What is the style? Where is it from? White? Red? Orange? Who knows? Surely not the server. Dining partner decided to go for the Orange wine which tasted like kombucha gone bad and while she finished her 2oz glass of wine that was awkwardly jiggered tableside I waited and waited and waited for the full beverage list. Couldn't they just bring it out with the other menus? We finally ordered our wine after sitting for 30 minutes with an empty glass and the server couldn't open the wine bottle it was painful to watch. I had read about the moths but hadn't experienced them before there they were - lots of them flying by which is just disgusting. Nearly all our food was underwhelming or just plain bad all served on oversized platters. Ceviche with the blue foam was gimmick-y and tasted as bad as it looked, the ceremonial taco was bland, our tostada had inedible tough carne asada that was cold. We decided to just pay and go and pretend like this dinner didn't happen however it took us asking 4 different people and nearly 20 minutes to receive our check which was so very overpriced for the poor experience - felt like the joke was on us. It's a shame Xokol we thought you were going to be one of the great Mexican restaurants but I'm sorry you need an...

I'll try to objectively summarize my experience yesterday (08.23.22): Service: I found it good. We only had a "booking" for their waiting list and they were pretty attentive & kind, and gave us a spot for four. Till there, all fine. The waiters were nice, educated, and friendly. Nevertheless, we weren't offered their tasting menu which we only got to know it existed in the middle of the dinner by eavesdropping. A shame because we wanted to try as much as possible. Food: some dishes were extraordinary (ie. Sopes con pato or taco de barbacoa) but some others were just average at best (ie. Quesadilla con huitlacoche or the tarta de pera). It was basically a tossed coin in the air, 50/50 chances of getting something delicious. Price: many others have complained about the high prices of the dishes, I will agree that for the size of portions, they are extremely expensive considering that this is Mexican food (cheap by default) and this is not a Michelin stars restaurant. Now, I understand that the ingredients are so "special" or "rare" that they are expensive so I get the pricing but it still feels a expensive for the local people, now having seen that many guests are foreigners, they may not have an issue with that and therefore the pricing strategy is justified. Overall: it was a good place, it was a nice experience, not sure though that is one to repeat unless I feel like paying 700 pesos (33€) per person. In my pictures you can see a hand next to a dessert to put perspective to the small size of...