Taverna — Restaurant in Mexico City

Had an absolutely great experience at Taverna, to celebrate my birthday. The aesthetic of the restaurant is beautiful and picture worthy. It’s one of those places to go celebrate a special occasion or bring someone out on a date.

When seated we were greeted by our amazing and highly attentive server, Alexander, who ended up confirming a few things we had in mind to order plus some. For appetizers we originally were thinking of only getting the cheese board with honey and the meatballs but he highly recommended we add the stuffed dates with chorizo. We’re a group that loves cheese so we loved all of the options on the board, meatballs were so juicy and tender that we were just in awe and the recommended stuffed dates which ended up being the highlight for the appetizers in my opinion.

We loved Alexander’s recommendation so much that we asked his suggestion for entrees and surely went for it. His recommendations were the heirloom tomato salad with burrata, the grilled octopus with the fried potatoes and the feast fish with the broken potatoes and citrus salad. The heirloom tomato salad and the grilled octopus were great but not as great at the feast fish the fish was so tasty and flavorful my mouth waters as I think of it right now. Alexander also recommended we pair a bottle of white wine with our meal which I can’t recall which one it was but it was an amazing paring.

Overall, the food and drinks at Taverna were amazing and I can’t really complain about it but to see and hear Alexander’s passion for the food at Taverna was incredible to see. Looking at him work and seeing how dedicated and attentive he was, not only with our party but with the other parties in the room was also inspiring to see. Big ups to him!! He really made us feel like we were dining at very exclusive and...

I HIGHLY suggest caution when booking here. I placed a 7:30 pm reservation for this restaurant tonight. When I booked on OpenTable there were four options: standard, bar, counter, outdoor. I chose standard.

We arrived at the restaurant and we were seated at a very small and incredibly uncomfortable hightop table in the bar area. I should note that there was only one other table in use at the restaurant. I asked to be moved to the beautiful room with standard dining tables, and I was refused. I was told if I waited until 8:10, I might get to move if someone didn't show up. I pointed out I reserved a "standard table," but the staff did not budge.

I decided to swallow it and just go with the flow. We ordered some drinks, and they offered a free appetizer because of our troubles. It was a 50 peso dish (basically a deconstructed version of the classic Barcelona tapas of pan con tomate), so it was barely a gesture.

We started to discuss the menu with the server. It turns out, we were not permitted to order off of the main dinner menu, only the bar menu. We were excited to try the feast of boar, but learned it was not available at our assigned table.

Incredibly frustrated, we decided to pay our drink tab and leave. This restaurant treated us horribly. I've eaten at many of the best restaurants in Mexico City, and I urge readers to go elsewhere. What I thought might be an amazing culinary experience turned into two overpriced cocktails.

Do yourself a favor and choose a restaurant that values its customers....

If you are looking for the definition of "overrated" and "gentrification", congratulations! You found it here! This has to be one of the most terrible experiences I've had, and being a food critic with more than 30 years on the job, that's saying something.

I came here because there was a lot of talk about the place and some friends told me the setting was amazing (which, to be true, it is, but that's about it) so I decided to come down, give it a try with a couple of friends and taking the advice of some others. Well... this is my tenth trip to Mexico and I've never tasted food this bland in a setting created for the chef to be showcased himself and not to showcase the food. See what I mean? This is the kind of place that actually hurts the culinary industry, where chefs are more worried about their image and the concept of their persona than are for the food they are serving. These type of places should fade away, but sadly the more expats in here the more they will keep appeasing to that culinary numb market.

Everything for the Instagram is good, but the moment you taste it, the dissappointment runs deep. But that's social media times. This restaurant wouldn't survive a month in any other capitl in the world without social media. And yet here we are, paying an overpriced food with an overrated chef and a nice setting and decoration (based on the roughness of the place).

Do yourself a favor and keep away. You want good contemporary food in Mexico City? There is a huge amount of that. Taverna is just an...