The Sonora Grill Playa del Carmen — Restaurant in Playa del Carmen

My husband and I had reservations at Sonora Prime for our anniversary dinner while we were visiting Playa del Carmen. Our experience was pretty awful from start to finish, and I wish I had booked our anniversary dinner literally anywhere else. Even eating at our hotel would have been better.

First, the address in the reservation confirmation email we received was incorrect, so we walked quite a long way in the wrong direction before discovering that the address in the booking email was different from the address in Google Maps.

When we arrived, the maître d' told us that he did not have a reservation under my name and we must have mistakenly made the reservation at Sonora Grill instead. I could see my name on the list on his iPad, so I pointed it out to him and also showed him my reservation confirmation email, to which he tersely responded, "Okay," and continued seating other parties. After waiting for some time, I reminded him that we had a reservation and asked if he was planning on seating us, and he finally directed us to our table.

When we entered, the hostess asked us if we were celebrating a special occasion. We told her that we were in fact celebrating our wedding anniversary, and she noted that on a card. This was never acknowledged at any point during our experience (not even a simple "happy anniversary"), so I'm not sure what the point of asking and noting it was. On the other hand, after reading another review which said that they were brought a dessert that they didn't really want in recognition of their anniversary and then were charged for it, maybe it's best that they didn't acknowledge ours.

After being seated, we were basically ignored all evening. We ordered, our cocktails arrived, and then we didn't see our waiter again for well over an hour. When he finally returned to ask us if we wanted another drink, I told him that we had been waiting for nearly an hour and a half and had not even received our appetizer yet, and as such I felt like our next round of drinks should be on the house. He apologized for the wait and offered us a glass of wine, but we could not have cocktails. Fine.

After an hour and a half, our food finally arrived, but it was just our mains -- our appetizer never materialized. We had each ordered 250g fillets, but we were served a single 500g fillet on a barely-warm "hot stone" to share because, we were told, they were out of the 250g fillets. This would have been perfectly fine with us if the stone had actually been hot, because my husband likes his steak medium well (which, I agree, is a travesty). However, the steak that we now had to share between us was served rare and the stone was not hot enough to cook it to his liking (or, really, at all). Moreover, the mashed potatoes were ice cold; they had clearly been sitting around for a long time. Honestly, we are an easygoing couple and are not hard to please, but this meal was barely edible.

When our waiter returned and asked how everything was, I was kind but honest about how bad the food was and that we didn't even get our appetizer. He apologized and brought us each a single scoop of unpleasant sorbet, which we didn't eat, along with the check. We couldn't wait to just pay and leave.

Other reviews suggest that our experience was was likely a fluke, but this was truly one of the most disappointing restaurant experiences we've ever had -- especially given that this was our anniversary dinner. I hope that others continue to have a better experience...

Visited during Spring Break. The restaurant is beautiful and I love the diverse music/videos. It has potential to be a great vibe. The restaurant was not really busy however, service was slow for both food and drinks.

The 3 stars are for the ambiance, bean dip, spicy salsas (verde was my fave) and the broccoli.

We had:

• Berry Martini: Fresh berries but not very tasty • A drink served in a coconut- don’t remember the name but that one was actually good.

• Octopus Chicharron: Requested it to be crispier but it still had a soggy exterior.

• Onion Soup: It was entirely way too sweet. The soup itself had the right ratio of onions and cheese and served piping hot (which isn’t common believe it or not) and I’m glad it was hot.

• Cowboy Dry Aged Prime Steak: I was extremely disappointed in this overpriced steak- I’m pretty easy going yet have expectations of certain types of steak and how it’s cooked. We ordered medium rare and it was soooo rare and requested it to be seared on both sides but I think the language barrier didn’t result in a seared steak. I think Mexico also just has different understanding of steak temps and definition of “USDA Prime”. We could barely cut the steak.. it was so chewy and I had to dang near tear the steak to even get a palatable piece. We never send steak back but we just needed to and asked that it be cooked a tad longer. They did bring out a hot grill plate to cook the steak but it still did not help. It was also flavorless and did not taste like a dry aged steak— It tasted and cuts like a Walmart sirloin.

• The broccoli was soooooo good. It was seasoned and cooked perfectly enhanced by a citrus element- probably lemon.

• Mashed potatoes were creamy but needed more garlic or some other seasonings. It had an interesting after taste- I think from either the cream , cheese or butter that they use.

Will never go back and will never order steak in...

Went there for our 17 year anniversary. The decor there is absolutely beautiful and has a very good feel when you walk in the door. The service however, was just adequate nothing special considering it’s a high-end expensive restaurant. I guess I was expecting a little bit more personal service.we waited a long time for everything with nobody really checking in on us in between. In contrast last year we went to Harry’s and the service was exceptional and very personal. When it comes to food, this is where the problem started to arise. Being a famous steakhouse how could you run out of both kinds of rib-eye cuts from the menu? It’s the most popular cut in the world! My wife ended up ordering filet mignon even though I knew she wouldn’t enjoy it as much. We did have a good laugh, though when she attempted to cut the filet mignon with the non-serrated knives that they provide which are completely useless to cut lean meat like that. She was working so hard to cut it as it was sliding around the plate that the meat actually flew off onto the table and we were both in tears because it reminded us of the scene in Pretty Woman with Julia Roberts and the “slippery little suckers” ha ha! I ordered mushroom risotto (I’m vegetarian) it was very tasty but WAY too salty I almost sent it back but it took forever to arrive and I didn’t want to wait again. The mixology cart that is pushed to the table was probably the highlight of the meal. The Watermelon martini he made was very very delicious! All and all we did have a fantastic time and enjoyed everything, just not at the levels to be expected at a place of this caliber… will come back and give it another try for sure and if it’s better will update...