La Semilla — Restaurant in Atlanta

Officially one of my favorite restaurants. This place has been on my list for a while and we finally went. I’m vegan and my partner isn’t but we both LOVED this place. All of the staff are not only friendly and attentive but also just very chill and personable. Good vibes. We got the croquettas de jamon (don’t expect them to taste ham-y but they are very very good - squeeze some lime over them and it takes it to an entirely different level), the queso blanco (it doesn’t taste like non-vegan queso but it was good - I can see a non-vegan disliking it though), the cubano (bruh - insane. It is made with jackfruit and seitan which are two of my least favorite meat substitutes but you wouldn’t be able to tell. My nonvegan partner who is very particular when it comes to vegan meats said it tasted like it wasn’t vegan meat at all - it was BOMB), the crunchwrap (not pictured but trust me when I say it tastes better than it looks. It looked underwhelming to us but then we tried it and its actual super good and the sour cream is done sooooo well), the bistec de palomilla (I. N. S. A. N. E. The flavors were balanced so incredibly well, each component was done perfectly and having it all together makes the perfect bite. We were very very impressed), and the apple empanada (way too much rosemary. Loved the concept tho. I think it would have been great if there wasn’t so much rosemary - not sure if it was accidentally overdone that night or if thats how it always is. Id possibly try it again just to see if it was an error lol). Top two choices: bistec de palomilla and cubano. Honestly tho, get it all lol oh and tip: make a reservation. Without one, the wait will be a lifetime. We got lucky and were able to sit outside (they have heaters) but inside was a 2 hour wait without a reservation. So def make one.

UPDATE: went a second time and tried some other dishes. Once again, amazing. Tried to enmoladas verdes (delicious enchilada-esque situation), the masa fried mushrooms (its like chicken-friend mushrooms and gravy - frickin amazing and has been added to my Top Favs list for this spot), and the strawberry tres leches (it was okay - not really a tres leches and it’s quite dense. It’s good, just not great). Also had the croquetas again but this time they didn’t taste great. Not sure what happened. But yeah overall...

My husband and I have been celebrating birthdays and anniversaries every year at La Semilla since they opened in 2023. This year for my birthday I decided to switch it up and come with 2 girlfriends instead of my husband. This was my first time introducing anyone else to this restaurant and unfortunately I was very embarrassed to have brought my friends here.

Saturday August 30th we arrived around 7pm, when we went to check in and get a table, we were informed that there would be no indoor seating available for the next 2 hours and no outdoor seating for the next hour. There were several open tables inside and out, however I do understand the concept of reservations so I wrote it off as those seats being reserved. We were told we could find a different restaurant if we didn’t want to wait. I informed the host (white woman with low buzz cut), that I am fully vegan and celebrating my birthday today, so it would be greatly appreciated if we could eat here as planned. The host dismissively nodded her head and said we would get a text whenever a table was ready. After sitting idle for about 45 minutes my friends and I decided to ask if we could at least sit at the bar, even though multiple tables outside were still vacant. When the initial host saw us speaking to another employee about seating, she hurried over and grabbed some menus and told us we could follow her now. She led us to a table outside and said “yall are lucky, they finished eating sooner than they were supposed to”…. Condescending damage control.

My take away from this underwhelming evening is that the staff was: understaffed, overwhelmed, anxious, and subsequently a bit rude.

My advice, an establishment like this makes money off more than food, you sell an aesthetic, a feeling, an experience, and this year unfortunately the mark was completely missed. I may or may not give La Semilla another chance, it is however, quite challenging to give my money to people who don’t value or respect my business.

My friend made a comment and said that if this was her birthday it would’ve been ruined. I try to remain optimistic, but it definitely is my regret for choosing to celebrate my birthday at La...

Excellent Food Marred by Poor Service from Host My partner and I have been regulars here for over a year now but after our experience tonight we wont be returning to dine in ever. We have repeatedly received very poor service from the Host whether we have a reservation or not. Last time we tried to eat here with a reservation and when we arrived we were told by the same Host that our table wasnt ready despite many tables being open. They asked us to sit at the bar while we waited for our table to be ready so we ordered drinks there and waited for 20 minutes until the Host came over and said our table was finally ready. However, the table we were finally sat at was always open and available since we had initially walked in so I’m not sure why we had to sit at the bar for 20 minutes and order drinks to wait for our reserved table that was always empty? This time we decided to try to stop in earlier in the evening as walk-ins and once again we faced terrible service from the Host. They essentially said they werent accepting walk-ins this evening and could only seat us at the bar despite once again there being a plethora of empty and available tables. I pleaded with them to let us wait for a table to become available and their response was extremely unprofessional saying “If you can eat in less than an hour and 15 minutes then I can seat you”. That amount of time seemed more than enough for 2 people to eat a meal so I kindly promised the Host that we could be done in less than that despite being shocked by their poor customer service. We were rushed our whole meal. As someone who has also worked as host and server in restaurants it was disappointing to see this kind of disrespect towards regular customers. Since this has been our umpteenth issue with the Host we will not be dining in at La Semilla any longer after over a year of frequenting it! The food is great but hoping the restaurant will do better to treat its regular customers well and with good service regardless of their race/age since its based in ATL and most of their customers are white. Also the parking validation for the parking garage...