Casa Celia Restaurante — Restaurant in Oaxaca

Most recent visit in January: Casa Celia sadly has discontinued the lunch special. It still serves interesting and flavorful food, but everything is now a la carte.

This is a review of lunch only; we will eventually try the tapas and paella and other times of the day.

Casa Celia is a new upscale restaurant on Quintana Roo, almost across from the Plaza de Barro. Currently open Wednesday to Sunday, a 3 course menu del día (220 pesos) that changes weekly is offered Wednesday to Friday with a choice of two appetizers and 2 entres (one meat and one vegetarian) and 2 desserts. Additional a la carte dishes are also on the menu.

Food quality is very good and the weekly choices are innovative, flavorful, and well presented: in two lunch visits we enjoyed a wonderful baked cauliflower, salad with goat cheese and figs, cream of squash soup, strawberry gazpacho, vegetable lasagna, and shrimp with rice. Non-alcoholic aguas/fruit beverages, very refreshing and original combinations of ingredients, are somewhat pricey. Wine, cocktails and beer are also available.

The space, while fairly small, feels contemporary, bright and airy; the tables, benches and chairs are attractive wood. The space is broken up into 3 areas, including a comfy open air lounge area in the front. In the main dining space, the hard wall surfaces and the volume/type of the recorded music made conversation challenging, especially for those in our party with hearing limitations/impairments- yes, we are a certain age, as were those at several other tables. Particularly at lunch, classical music would be a welcome change. We were a group of five and needed a pechero on which to hang hats and bags, but as yet the restaurant doesn't have one, so we had to use an extra chair from another table. Service is attentive and efficient.

Sandwiches and tapas are on the regular printed menu and paella is a...

Ambiance - 4 Service - 4.5 Food - 5!!!!! Wish I could give it a 10 Drinks - 4

This isn't just my favorite restaurant in Oaxaca, this is one of my favorite restaurants period! The food is stunning, fun/creative flavor combinations, simple ingredients but robust flavors.

When traveling to a new city I never go to the same bar or restaurants twice. I couldn't help myself: I had to go again. And the 2nd time didn't disappoint.

My first experience the service was not so good, but based on others comments if figured it was an off night. And my second visit was good service. Not fine dining or as amazing as some other reviews but good.

I ordered 6 dishes/apps over my 2 visits, all great (Croquettes not my personal favorite, but we're still ok). Not sure there is much point to comment on the other individual dishes as the menu rotates each week. But needless to say I got my veggie fill (that I was much craving from the lack of veggies in Mexican cuisine). And let's just say it was so good I now like beets (who knew).

If I'm really nitpicking on details: The Mojito: could use a little muddling on the mint.

This is one of the best and unique meals I have had in some...

Great Food ! This is a nice cozy little Spanish restaurant with some very good dishes. We started we appetizers of "Croquetas Queso Azul y Hongo" which had a some nice blue cheese flavor but not overwhelming, very tasty. Also had "Plato de Embutidos" with some great bread, olives and meats! For the main course we had a weekly special "Costilla de Cerdo Guisada en su Jugo" which were tasty and very tender fall off the bone. Also had "Fideua de Maricos" which was a nice taste difference using thin pasta versus Rice Paella. Really liked it all and will definitely return. Under the "Menus" section i posted both the English and Spanish versions...