Restaurante La Choca Tulum — Restaurant in Quintana Roo

Best food we had and Tulum. We stayed on the beach and went to all the most highly rated restaurants during our stay. Our last night we wanted to venture into town to find some real authentic local Mexican food. We found this place through Google. Very casual and quaint. Excellent service, excellent chef. This is a new restaurant, the chef previously worked as a hotel chef at restaurants. This is obvious once you taste of food. very creative, thoughtful and full of flavor. Here is a list of the restaurants we visited during our stay ranking from number 1 as the best

Restaurante La Choca- excellent! best food - our favorite. Rosa Negra- excellent food but music is very loud. Drugs are offered at the bathrooms. Some may be offended by that. Gitano jungle- excellent food, drugs are also offered at the bathrooms, didn’t feel very safe because of that. Ukami sushi. I eat better sushi at any of the restaurants in Seattle on the regular. Not impressed at all. I’m surprised by the good reviews this place has. Hartwood. Not impressed at all. also surprised by the good reviews. Have to book your reservations almost a month in advance but still have to wait for a table. I would be fine with that if the food was excellent. It’s definitely not. I actually was disgusted by the prawn dish’s sauce. Completely absent of flavor. It’s almost as if the restaurant was out of onion, garlic, salt and lime. Seriously lacked flavor. So strange. Service was also terrible.

We stayed at the Kanan hotel On the beach. A beautiful hotel built in a treehouse. Beautiful unique room with excellent Wi-Fi and service. Food wasn’t great there but so many other restaurants nearby. We gave the hotel 4.7...

Our group was lured to this restaurant by other reviews, and I hope this review does the same.

We ordered the Tampiqueña, the Arroz Tumbada, the Shrimp Tempura (which are tacos), Al Pastor Tacos, and the Tikin Xic whole fish (we got it fried).

All of the food was delicious. Perfectly seasoned and shockingly good for such an unassuming local joint. The Tampiqueña was tender, and perfect if you're looking for something a little more than just a well-cooked steak. The Timbada was a cross between Cioppino and Paella, with a rich tomato and seafood broth and plenty of fresh seafood. The al pastor tacos were as good as you can get them, and the shrimp tempura tacos were, surprisingly, the best shrimp tacos I've ever had (and I'm from California).

Ideally if you go here, you speak a bit of Spanish. I'm a native speaker, so had no issues with ordering or communicating with staff, but this place is pretty local so if you're a tourist and don't speak any Spanish you may have some trouble with your order. As it was we had a couple of issues with our orders being slightly incorrect, and the fish coming out much later due to a mix up, but honestly the food was just so good (and the staff so apologetic) that none of that matters.

Come and eat here - you will not be...

Such a wonderful restaurant! My husband and I went here on a whim while we were staying in Tulum and I'm so glad we did. The food, service and atmosphere were phenomenal.

Food: we got lime soup, tacos al pastor, guacamole, and margaritas. Everything was unbelievably tasty and very unique. It was a slight twist on a lot of the classic Mexican dishes. The owner described it as a sort of prehispanic style. The flavors were fantastic and quite different to anything we'd tried before.

Service: the chef came out to explain a lot of the plates to us which was so cool. He told us a bit of background around the spices and styles he used in various dishes. At the end of the night, he was kind enough to share a final shot of tequila with us. All the waitstaff were super friendly and knowledgeable.

Atmosphere: there was fun music (at a good volume too - not too loud, but definitely a vibe). The plates and decorations were gorgeous.

It's rare to find real hidden gems nowadays but I'm honestly shocked more people haven't heard about this place. Go and try literally anything on the menu, you will not be...