Gastro — Restaurant in Santa Cruz de Tenerife

Before discussing Wakanda's food, it's worth dwelling a moment on its incredible setup and décor. There's something magical about walking into this place. One moment, you are in a narrow, quiet, and nondescript street of Santa Cruz, with the only thing standing out being Wakanda's door, skillfully painted from top to bottom with bright colors and Aztec-styled patterns. The next moment, after you pass that door, you are in a charming and most eclectically decorated hall leading to a beautiful central patio where most of the shade is provided by an old parchita vine. The décor is fantastical, warm, and inviting... and so is the staff. My partner and I walked in with our two loud firecrackers of kids, aged 6 and 4, who were jumping all over the place. Not only was Wakanda's staff very gracious about the disruption, they engaged and entertained our kids.

Now onto the food: it was delightful. We started with the patacones and the dim sum. Shaped as small cups, filled with an avocado-based mix, the patacones were just the right amount of crunchy that makes every bite a pleasure to bite into without the whole crumbling apart. The taste of the filling was also well-balanced with just the right amount of citrus.

The dim sum's presentation was surprising: I had never had deep fried dim sum before. Also, it didn't come with the customary dip sauce on the side. I found that to be a creative and solid take on dim sum. Biting into all the layers at once, you're left with a comforting and umami-rich taste.

We went on to have the beetroot tartare and the veggie burger. A common challenge with tartar is preserving the freshness of the diced ingredients once the binding marinade (which generally contains acids) is mixed in. None of that: the beetroot was fresh as if straight out of the ground, and the marinade was masterfully made: sufficiently present, with a traditional mustardy bite, but not to the point of overshadowing the vegetables. Well done Wakandans!

A quick caveat about the burger: while I'm a mostly-vegetarian person, I will always prefer real meat in my burger because I like the texture of beef patties, which I find I never quite get with veggies patties. So, I won't tell you that Wakanda's veggie burger is a perfect substitute for a beef burger. However, as far as taste goes, Wakanda's pulse-based patty was filled with flavors. In addition, there's great attention to all the other ingredients, which I very much appreciated. No shortcuts. Even the bread - which many restaurants so often neglect - waste tasty, well-textured, and nicely warmed before serving. As a plus, it should be mentioned that the burger came with perfectly seasoned chips.

Last but not least, the parchita mojito, made with fruits from the same vine that grows in Wakanda’s backyard. Just do yourself a favor...

Edit: we went back for a 2nd time. We didn't have a reservation but they managed to fit us in. We arrived at 9, the start up was a little messy and slow but we ordered 3 little starter dishes to get the evening going, telling them we'd order more later. The dishes came to the table at around 2145, they we're lukewarm at best but the flavour was very good, especially the deepfried dimsum. They cleared the plates and we were ready to order the mains but they didn't come to the table for the next 20 minutes. When they came they informed us the kitchen closes at 2230 and we were too late. We were shocked. We specifically mentioned we wanted to order more, they didn't cler our sharing plates or cutlery when they cleared the table of the entrees, clearly understanding we wanted to order more, and they never told us the kitchen was about to close. After some negotiating they said we could only order the curry and the cold burrata salad. The couscous with the curry was clumpy, very dry and very heavily seasoned with nutmeg. But what was worse, there were maybe 2 table spoons of actual curry on the couscous, almost nothing. When I asked for more sauce they said this was the last they had and too bad for us. We didn't finish about 3/4th of the dish, told them this was unacceptable, but still they left it on the bill. The burrata salad was 80% corn with maybe 3 or 4 halfed cherry tomatoes and some lettuce. The burrata itself seemed on the edge of going bad and left a stingy taste on our tongues. We wanted to bring this up however while we were still eating they already started cleaning the restaurant like they were closing and really gave us the feeling to hurry up and get out. We ordered a cheesecake which was good but we're never asked if we wanted coffee or tea (I'm assuming the machine was already cleaned?). I work as a restaurant manager in fine dining restaurants, and I can tell you this visit was way below par. Tips for the future: make a round along the tables informing customers the warm kitchen will close soon to give them the opportunity to order. Never make the customer feel like they're unwanted and/or a nuisance, this left a really bad taste in our mouth. When you don't have enough ingredients to make a dish, don't serve the dish! The curry dish was totally unacceptable. I hope you will take the tips to heart and if I ever come back we won't have the same experience again

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First visit: Great ambience! They have a very beautiful cosy, homely setting. I'd recommend to start with a passion fruit mojito, made from fresh home grown passion fruit. We shared a few of the burgers and the burrata salad, which were all amazing. I'd like to highlight the wakanda burger, which was fantastic! The staff is very friendly and accommodating and we had a...

Ordered the Sunday brunch for €16 after much confusion between the very impatient waitress and it was not good. To start I ordered a cortado and was brought a tiny little espresso size cup of coffee and the coffee was horrible quality and lukewarm. I was willing to let the coffee slide and not mention it to the waitress until they brought out the food and skimpy portions. The yogurt bowl had yogurt with the consistency of water and was not real yogurt and super liquidy. There was barely any fruit, granola, etc. and the bowl was tiny with 75% of this liquidy pink yogurt with a teaspoon of granola. Then they brought out the tostado with poached egg which was so miniscule i thought it would be eaten by ants. The tostado was literally a piece of toast smaller than the palm of my hand with a tiny amount of beetroot, avocado and spinach; there was probably not even a quarter of an avocado on the toast. The juice was the only thing that was halfway decent but it was a tiny child size serving and well under 20cl. I was willing to let the coffee slide and not mention it but not the food. I brought it up with the manager and instead of him rectifying the situation and taking responsibility he got aggressive with me, used bad language and tried to play off that yogurt is supposed to be the consistency of water (liquid) and that I was wrong. At that moment when he became very rude and non-apologetic and used bad language in front of two parents and a young child sitting next to me i had had enough and told him I was leaving the restaurant and would not pay the €16 for the overpriced and poor quality brunch because of his abusive language and his outright defiance and lies when he told me that yogurt is supposed to be the consistency of liquid. Save you money and don't eat here, there are much better cafes and breakfast spots in Santa Cruz where you won't have to deal with aggressive, foul-mouthed, abusive and impatient waiter/managers that don't care about what their customers think of the quality...