Libre — Restaurant in Palmerston North

A wonderful, enchanting, beautiful artsy Mexican-inspired cafe/restaurant/cocktail bar I stumbled across looking girl lunch and coiffed after encountering a disillusioning ableist cafe along the same street (a victim of its own success), that preaches about its ‘mobility values’ and accessibility, yet wouldn’t hold a table for 2 people, two with mobility issue one in a wheelchair, under an extremely stressful health nightmare, shunned and unable to even book a table, we were extremely fortunate to find the kindest of gentleman who wasn’t even open at the time - yet kindly opened his doors for us to book a table for the next day. If you love Frida Kahlo, an inspiring artistic vibe, gorgeous setting with plenty of room, booths, and other seating arrangements, gorgeous bar, and art to admire & completely accessible - not to mention the delicious food, coffee and full bar, without feeling like one in the day - this is the place to go - a cultured place with kind people, excellent service, great seating and accessible toilets. And the best maître D and service I’ve had the pleasure to meet in a long while. Kindness is a value that is missing in many hospitality venues these days, as is service. Libre has it in spades. Support local, support kindness and those who support others in the kiwi way! Love ❤️ libre! Thank you - we will be back - for those delicious tacos alone!! And to make my way through the rest of the menu and...

We’ve been regular visitors to Libre for a long time and have always loved the food. We usually ordered the same favourites every time, so we were excited to go again tonight. Unfortunately, the experience was quite different.

The menu has changed completely. The corn chips and dip we loved are now an up-charged corn chips and guacamole. The beef enchiladas are gone, and sadly so is our favourite dessert — the chili chocolate mousse. Nothing on the menu really excited us anymore. The new menu feels a bit all over the place, with only five main options, and prices have gone up significantly across the board.

We even understand the idea is “to add flavour,” but honestly… hmm. To make matters worse, another diner next to us advised us not to bother with the cocktails because of how small they were for the price — not something you want to hear while dining out.

It’s a shame, as Libre used to be one of our go-to spots, but with these changes, we’ll likely look...

Fantastic new Mexican restaurant in town. The atmosphere when we visited was really good, place was packed, lots of noise (in a good way). They don't take reservations so we had a very short wait for a table in which we were offered drinks/food menu but were seated so quickly we didn't get a chance to order. Has a great range of brewunion beers on tap and a couple guest taps which is great. We went with the fiesta platter which gave us 4 tacos of our choosing, fried chicken, elotes and corn chips which was great option. The tacos were fantastic, a really good selection of authentic Mexican flavours and I would say there would be few places in NZ where you are going to get a better offering which is pretty amazing to say of a place in Palmerston North. As mentioned the place was very busy but service was great. Really great addition to Palmerston North, highly recommended and we will be coming...