Primo — Restaurant in Playa del Carmen

A moderately upscale restaurant with a focus on cooking things on the open flame grill. For appetizers, we had the aguachile, ceviche, and bone marrow. Bone marrow was beautifully charred and served with fresh tortillas as a makeshift taco. The marrow itself was super fatty and perfectly seasoned with a lot of that smoky char coming through. By itself, I would definitely crave some acidity but thankfully we also got the aguachile. The aguachile was blisteringly punchy with brightness and the seafood itself was bouncy and tasted fresh. The squid ink and avocado helped round things out and the dish ended up feeling exactly what I want from an aguachile. The ceviche was much less acidic and the sauce the fish was served in was more creamy than it was acidic. The fish was also bit bland which maybe works for people who are getting into seafood but makes the dish feel fairly flat in comparison to the aguachile. Overall would definitely recommend ordering the bone marrow and aguachile apps.

Then came time for entrees. The grilled fish was fairly meh, suffering again from some blandness with a sauce that was mostly just earthy and creamy. I think the slaw/salad served on the side was their attempt to balance things out and provide the fish some much needed acidity but that part of the dish also fell kind of flat. Most detrimental though was that the fish was overcooked. The skin developed a lovely crisp crust but to the expense of the actual flesh. The duck carnitas suffers a smidge from the overcooking problem as well although the crispy duck skin and dark meat parts were thankfully spared. This dish was also served in taco form, giving you the chance to scrape bits of duck meat off the bone and dress to your pleasure with their salsa, grilled onions, and carrot potato thing. The salsa was a bit disappointing, more sour than bright and flavorful although the duck carnitas with tortillas was a suitably satisfying experience.

The interior vibe is mostly open with the odd waft of the open flame blowing towards you to remind you of who is doing the cooking. Service was very attentive and polite, even if you speak predominantly English. Would recommend if you’re in the area although I would focus more on the appetizers than...

The food - top notch. The ambiance, cute (and better than the old location). Service: I’m never going back again (says it all).

Food:

It’s not Mexican food, but it’s amazing food:

• I was skeptical about pork belly as a whole meal but I was thoroughly impressed. Highly recommended

• The octopus was pretty and my friend was quite happy with the taste.

• The brisket though, is good and is a very big piece (so filling for sure), but in my opinion not worth 600 pesos good.

• chocolate cake with ice cream: to die for (but not a big piece). They could’ve given a little more ice cream (it’s not even 1 scoop - looking more like bird poop).

• we don’t drink much, so we each got 1-2 glasses of wine. I’m happy with it.

Ambiance: lots of space, and decoration is nice (“tulum” vibe). Music is low enough to carry on conversations easily. Weather proof. No AC but big fans.

Service:

Super disappointed. I’ve dined at fine dining. I’ve dined at hole in the wall. So I’m not a snob. I adjust my expectations accordingly. This place has all male servers (that’s when you know they try to look high end). The prices are definitely trying to be “high end”. In this case, we expect service standard accordingly.

Our server was Luis. There’s macho micro-aggression coming through his attitude: he was smiling for tips but every now and then when we didn’t understand him (because his English wasn’t good and his brain seemed to be wired differently - against common sense), his real attitude slip out. We really struggled with him. In the end, we still gave him a standard tip (not more, not less) despite of his attitude. He was NOT HAPPY and he made it very obvious about his expectation for more tip (all the fake smile instantly disappeared - only the microagression left lol). That turned me off even more - most servers in Mexico are gracious for this optional free money, especially given he didn’t even deserve the tip to begin with!!

Until the restaurant fixes their service, I will not be going back. Based on their response, they have no plan to do so, so...

We made a reservation to eat there on Christmas Eve, and we were excited to dine there, as we had eaten at the previous location when we first visited PDC in 2019. The new space is larger than the original and aesthetically pleasing, very similar to the original space. Having said that, the tables only have benches for seating - no seating with backrests. This made for a very uncomfortable dining experience. Decent seating really goes a long way. The service was great at the start, our server gave us many good recommendations for food and cocktails. The food was fine overall. To start we had the watermelon salad, which was just a regular green arugula and bell pepper salad with some watermelon and a lot of fresh parsley. I would have gone easier on the parsley, but it was a decent start to the meal. For mains, we had the short ribs, which were a special, and the brisket. Both were solid but nothing out of the ordinary. The portions were very generous. We decided to get the potato puree as a side. It was tasty but far too liquidy. You couldn’t really eat it with a fork, and we had to flag a server down to ask for spoons. Speaking of servers, our server didn’t check in with us even once during the meal, which was odd. I’m definitely not a fan of servers checking in too often during a meal, but a quick “how is everything?” would have been nice. Overall, it was okay but really nothing special. I really wanted to enjoy it more, but it just didn’t hit all the marks for the price point. Hopefully they can make some changes and improve things by the time we make it back for...