Los Murales — Restaurant in Playa del Carmen

I would have given this restaurant, which specialises in seafood, a 4 or even 5 star rating, but why have piped “environmental” music playing whilst the live musicians are playing and singing? Why tolerate crying and screaming children in what purports to be a “smart” restaurant? To be blunt, Royal Haciendas in general, including Los Murales, is just a cacophony of noise, with music from one area competing with music from another. Also, I was under the impression that there is supposed to be a dress code for this restaurant, which is pleasantly air conditioned, but shorts and T-shirts and the like seem perfectly acceptable, as does the use of mobile devices making all kinds of noises throughout the evening! Have some manners. Leave your mobile behind or switch it to silent if you need it for emergencies or to take photos. If you don’t want to talk to the people you are having dinner with I would suggest you choose different dining partners. Lastly, our waiter seemed over zealous in clearing away as soon as a plate was finished rather than waiting until everyone else had finished before starting to clear things away. I may get shot down in flames for my comments, as I am English, and this may be the way things are done for Americans who may like it that way nowadays, but I doubt it. An otherwise excellent evening spoilt by the small things. I’ve raised these points with the restaurant Captain and the duty manager, Jesús Martinez, at the Royal Haciendas, so I am not saying anything behind their backs that I would not and have not said to...

TL;DR Food has degraded from food we look forward to each vacation, to never wanting to eat at Los Morales again. The food has gone from quality to food rife with conflicting flavors and awful textures. Best food we had tonight was the pallet cleanser sorbet in between the appetizer and our food.

What happened to this place??

I came here during our all inclusive vacation with my wife and two kids (13 and 9). It's obvious that there is someone behind the scenes that knows what they are doing with food, but perhaps the people on the line cooking it don't always get it right.

The food here (like everywhere else at this resort) is hit and miss.

It's all very beautifully presented, but how good it is can vary from plate to plate.

For appetizers, we got the potato croquette, the octopus, and the blue corn and crab turnover.

My 13 year old son reports that the octopus was good. My wifes corn and crab turnover was dry and pretty tasteless. My potato croquette was good, but not necessarily more than the sum of it's parts.

For dinner, unfortunately it was mostly a miss. My skirt steak was fine, it had burrata melted on top and was served with something so unremarkable I can't remember what it was.

My wife got the beef papardelle and she couldn't finish it. My sons salmon was good, he got some sort of baked potato alongside of it that was dry and unseasoned.

I haven't mentioned my daughters food yet - she got a ceasar salad and a plate of spaghetti - she said it was great.

Dessert was fine, no complaints.

Service was good.

All in all, I would say the food was "ok" - if I had to actually pay a-la-carte prices for it, I would be really.. (and I mean...