Los Danzantes — Restaurant in Oaxaca

Jan 15, 2024: The worst restaurant experience of my life. I went there to celebrate my daughter's 20th birthday. They wanted to charge me for a lousy plate we did not consume and sent back. The lady in charge said they had a meeting in the kitchen and had agreed the dish was fine, so I had to pay. I refused, and they agreed to remove it only after I threatened to dispute the transaction with my bank. Then, the lady comes with the new check and, 'for my security,' requested my ID to verify that my name coincided with my credit card. This was meant to provoke and insult. No one ever requests ID in a place like this. I signed electronically on a terminal pad, but they also wanted me to sign a physical copy for the restaurant. I left comments about my horrible experience on that receipt and they went bananas. They had Luis — my waiter, who was great and the only decent person I met there — follow me outside to request my signature on a new receipt, and I refused. But then, they sent a crazy guy and a security person to follow me and harass me and my family on the streets of Oaxaca, saying that I had not paid the bill. He harassed us for more than three blocks. A horrible and distressing experience.

UPDATE (Jan 19, 2024): These harassers are accusing me of not paying the bill. I'm attaching a picture of the charge in my account. They are also accusing me of writing "obscene" words on the receipt, so I'm including the receipt for people to see the "obscene" words I wrote. I'm not attaching pictures of the harasser so that this review is not blocked.

UPDATE (Jan 24, 2024): These harassers keep getting my review blocked. I invite you to reply instead of trying to censor me. Each time you block it, I will re-upload a new comment with updates. I will not get tired of this; the only thing you are causing is for this review to keep appearing at the top of the newest ones.

UPDATE (Feb 6, 2024): These harassers keep blocking my review. I will not get tired of this. They managed to block my picture, but you can see it in my yelp review from Jan 19, 2024. By the way, tell the chef not to go overboard with the parsley on the octopus.

UPDATE (March 26, 2024): These harassers keep blocking my review, so here it is again.

UPDATE (June 5, 2024): They keep blocking my review, and they also blocked 6 other positive reviews I wrote for other places. I suspect they did it to try to affect my google local guide status. Crazy people. Given that they will try to block it again (and I will repost it with further updates when they do), I will add the pictures from the...

DO NOT GO HERE. There are many great restaurants in Oaxaca but unfortunately this is NOT one of them. Los Danzantes is a terrible establishment that does not care about its customers or the customer experience. They only care about making money. I’ve traveled around the world to over 50 countries and this is the first time I’ve had a restaurant tell me and my family to go away as they refused to let us dine there even though we had a valid reservation. We had a late (9:30 pm) reservation for a party of 5, made through our hotel a couple days earlier and twice confirmed with us by our hotel. We were all well dressed and arrived promptly at 9:30 looking forward to having a nice meal on our last night in Oaxaca but were quickly told by a rude hostess they were not going to honor our reservation, supposedly because we did not provide a deposit on a credit card. They claimed to have sent an email to an email address that was misspelled and not received by me requesting payment in advance. When one sends an email to an invalid email address there is a bounce back email that lets you know the email was undeliverable, in which case they should have either sent a message to or called my phone number (which they had) or reached back out to the hotel which they did not do. Any reputable business or restaurant would have done that if they are acting in good faith. The hostess (tall lady) showed no empathy and kept saying unfortunately they cannot seat us and suggested we go to a bar they own in the same building for drinks and snacks! I am Caucasian and my wife is black so am hopeful that race did not play a factor here but can’t say for certain that it did not based on her ill-mannered and unprofessional behavior. I was actually hesitant to go to this restaurant because of recent bad reviews but decided to go due to the recommendation of our hotel concierge. Interestingly within 30 minutes of being told we could not dine there I received a phone call from an apologetic PR person associated with the restaurant asking me if we would come back as they would be willing to seat us! By that time we had gone to a lovely restaurant around the corner called Casa Oaxaca that has great food and genuinely attentive and caring staff so fortunately our night was not a complete disappointment! Too many other options in Oaxaca than to support a business...

From August 2022: We’ve been to Los Danzantes six times now. We love this place. Antonio and Luis and have been so awesome that the hospitality is a huge reason we keep going back. They are incredibly knowledgeable about the food, herbs and various teas, liquors and wines. Our servers also all seem to be really happy, having stayed with the restaurant for a long time. It appears that LD believes in taking the time to educate and care for the folks who work for their company and in turn, those folks are helping us to feel cared for. I hope the practice of caring for staff this well continues.

So far, our favorite dishes are the hoja santa (quesillo - stringy cheese - stuffed Yerba santa leaf on a bed of tomatillo salsa), yellowfin tuna tartar tostadas (incredibly flavorful), the huazontle tempura croquettes (huazontle is a plant related to quinoa/amaranth the croquettes are comfort-foodesque bites with the delicious quesillo and warm yellow mole), the fresh watermelon salad (which reaches beyond the Oaxaca boundaries with its ponzu sauce but nonetheless manages to fit into the tones of the menu and is quite refreshing), the wild mushroom lasagna (is a warm and filling dish after a long day of hiking or hours of walking through town - it features a variety of local mushrooms, which can boost can immune system and replenish the energy), the cauliflower (which contrasts wonderfully both visually and taste wise with the red pipian sauce (ground chilis and pumpkin seed - so antiinflammatory and filled with zinc), the ancho chili stuffed with huitlacoche corn fungus (the latter being really high in the amino acid lysine) and both tlayudas are excellent, crispy, filled with just the right amount of quesillo and served on a slab of stone to highlight where they were cooked.

This is a great restaurant. If you go, please bring your wonderful curiosity and treat the staff well.

Prior review From March 2022: We loved every dish we ate at this restaurant and the dishes were next level. A huge thunderstorm and downpour started just as we had paid. Our server, Jonni, told us a story of how el tlacuache was the only animal who could go down to hell and steal mezcal and fire from the devil. It was an amazing experience and we...