Casa Banana — Restaurant in Tulum

The food and drinks are absolutely amazing, and the staff are extremely kind, attentive, and helpful with selecting dishes from their menu for people with food allergies.

In fact, Casa Banana was the only restaurant during my 1-week stay that helped me feel confident and comfortable with enjoying my dinner without the worry of cross contamination. I have shellfish, fish, and nut allergies, but I was reassured by a manager and multiple staff members who explained how they use different utensils, grill, etc for people with allergies. I was also asked by 3 different staff members if I have any food allergies that I should be aware, which was nice because I had struggled to find restaurants who not only asked me about allergies, but also had a very specific protocol in place for people with food allergies.

We ordered the Gnocchi and Flank Steak w/ chimichurri sauce and mashed potatoes. Both dishes were absolutely AMAZING, and we decided to split them because of the portion size of the steak and the rich and creaminess of the gnocchi sauce (it would have been so good with bread alone)! We live in Chicago where gnocchi is a staple, but Casa Banana’s gnocchi was the best gnocchi we’ve ever eaten!!!!

Yes, the food was a little pricey, but people shouldn't vacation in Tulum if they are looking for somewhere cheap and tropical. The food, drinks and experience were worth every penny!!!

Another nice aspect of Casa Banana was the ambiance. The restaurant was perfect for a nice date night without the loudness of fist pumping music! Each table had a small candle and a romantic vibe where we could sit and hear each other without screaming at the top of our lungs - this was refreshing!

You can make reservations online which is a must-have during busy season, but we decided to take our chances by grabbing a last minute dinner at 7:45pm. We had a drink at the bar and waited 45 mins for a table (flew by) with the option to order dinner at the bar. There were open tables outside, but it had just rained and we were unsure if it would rain again. The bar has enough room if you wanted to have dinner and drinks, and it doesn’t feel cramped!

My only complaint was being asked if I wanted cocaine and ketamine as I was walking to the bathroom and right as we exited the restaurant. I was pissed because I was asked right as a little boy was behind me, and headed to the restroom. He was sitting at the table next to us, and I waited until he came out of the stall next to me before returning back to my table. I’m sure nothing would have happened to him, but it made me feel uncomfortable that he was around for that moment, and I also regret not telling his parents. I was asked a 2nd time when going to restroom, including 3 other women.

Unfortunately, the restaurant is not to blame for the drug dealing and restaurant owners have no choice but to comply with what is happening inside of their business. I am only including this so that parents are attentive and aware of what is happening inside ALL Tulum restaurants! Do not allow your teens and young kids to go to the bathroom alone! I am not saying people who do drugs are bad people either, but there is a real fentanyl epidemic taking place and I would hate for anyone’s child to make a poor decision that could cost them their life!

AGAIN, I HIGHLY RECOMMEND this restaurant and will be back when I visit again next month! I have zero complaints about the restaurant or food. The drug dealers are NOT affiliated with the restaurant and the restaurant(s) do NOT...

The food? Possibly the best steak I've ever eaten in my life, and I've been all over this planet. HUGE shout out to the chefs! My wife had the firewood octopus salad and the red snapper which she absolutely loved and it's next to impossible to please this woman's palette haha. The presentation was superb, the chefs here truly cook to impress, and they succeed to an truly impressive degree, the care and effort they put into making the dishes bleeds from the dish. However our server was practically nonexistent. We sat with empty water glasses that were never filled, we had a glass of wine each that sat empty for the over half of our time spent there, then we finished our food with nothing to drink and sat there for another 20 or 30 minutes watching our server on his phone and chatting with coworkers, literally doing nothing aside from not doing anything. I tried to remain tactful and look toward him, raise my hand, etc, but it didn't work. After sitting there parched in 90 degree weather, having just spent $200+ USD, I gave up and had to go to the bar and ask for our check. So after a few minutes, our waiter comes back to the table with the bill with a strange form to fill out to use our credit card, this was concerning and a major turn off, we're getting a new credit card once we get home, I don't trust this extremely insecure process. So we had 2 interactions with our waiter over the course of around 90 minutes, and no, it wasn't very busy, we watched him scroll on his phone and chat practically the entire time. First interaction was taking our order, the second interaction was after I had to get a bartender to get our check, which the waiter comes and has the nerve to ask how much we would like to tip. I always tip well as a service industry veteran myself, and I've never wanted to not give someone a tip so badly. He truly deserved nothing whatsoever. If I were management I'd either retrain or get rid of the waiter we had.

To Casa Banana management and owners, I give your chefs the highest praise possible, I was truly impressed and we had a delicious dinner to remember, however you may want to ensure your waitstaff are adequately trained and attentive, especially given the price point of the restaurant. The food quality and the service there are polar opposites. Excellent top-tier cuisine that's prepared to impress and succeeds with flying colors, but an absent and inattentive waitstaff that seems to expect and ask for tips when in this instance they did literally nothing aside from fully neglecting their patrons. This occurred April 13th, 2023 at around 10:30 PM. I did tip, but I really, REALLY did not want to.

Superb food (tell your chefs they are world class!), but poor and absent waitstaff.

Also it may be helpful to know that purchasing here with a credit card got us an exchange rate from USD at 7 or 8 percent higher than the current...

My wife and I are massive foodies, we travel around the food we are going to eat all of the time. We have dined at James Beard and Michellen resturants many time before. Tulum was not a place that we thought this was possible yet, as it's a fairly new area. Boy were we surprised.

Casa Banana is sublime. To start we were able to book reservations through WhatsApp before the restaurant even opened for the day which made it so much easier. When we arrived we were immediately treated by two hostess. They made sure we did not have food allergies and sat us in the middle of the reaturant, not to close to the hearth as it was a little warm the day we dined lol.

The first thing you notice when you walk in is that the resturant has no walls! It reminded us of a beach front home that had a covered patio. The warm amber lights and bright glow of the hearth made everything seem commie and that is hard to do! Prepare yourself as other than fans moving air it's a little warm, but I can honestly say everything was so perfect that we did not mind. It almost added to the dinner.

Our waiter was superbly attentive, making sure we had new water before our glasses were empty and aaking for drink ordered as he felt nessary.

The food was coursed perfectly as well, as each time we would near the end of a course one of the easily 20 staff would clear out plates, clean the table and bring us new place settings.

We honestly felt that everything was executed to almost perfection.

Dinner, several drinks (lol) with a tip as around $350 ish USD which for the level of food to us was perfectly reasonable. We would without question dine at Casa...