Chef Vargas Brunch & Tacos — Restaurant in Cheltenham Township

AMAZING FOOD! Family-owned & operated w the utmost pride & attention. Chef and staff are friendly & welcoming. Menu selections are all so yummy was hard to decide. Food came out quickly & EVERYTHING was SCRUMPTIOUS!!! Had the churro waffles....soooo good! The pork tacos are tender & have a nice balance of salt & sweet w the pineapple salsa. Tostone chicken sandwich w fries such a perfect lunch bite! Chicken moist & tostones crisp. Had water infused w strawberry made in the restaurant. MUST TRY! Naturally made & naturally sweet!!! There was no room for dessert after all that! Real bonus dining during Dine Latino week and supporting a Latino-owned restaurant with a Chef and family who consistently give back to the community & are genuinely awesome people! Chef Vargas TRULY is a hidden gem. Like have to be in the "know" to get there & at the right time when the crowds aren't too big. Like an exclusive club only the VIPS know if. 😁😉😊😎 (Arrived between the lunch and dinner hour.) Perefext timing for Chef Vargas to have a little free time to chat with us and personally take our order. His daughter and her GORGEOUS family visited while we dined. Lovely to witness what a great family man and loving father/grandfather Chef Vargas is...in addition to being a FANTASTIC Chef!!! Highly recommend! Abiut a 39 min drive from Center City Philadelphia, but soooo worth it! In the Elkins Park House (development) to the left when enter the driveway. You will see a small sign in the grass and a small sign on the door. Otherwise, those who know, KNOW. 😊😁😎😉 Buen Provecho! Ohhhh... Chef Vargas changes the menu every 6 months!!! Excited to see what the offering will be the...

The food is delicious, but the service leaves a lot to be desired. Our server forgot to put our order in (keep in mind that there are two servers and only 10 tables in the entire restaurant). After waiting about 45 minutes and not getting our food (while every single table that came in after us was paying and some had left), I finally asked the server and she admitted to forgetting to put the order in. She then said that she was new there, but putting an order in after you take it has nothing to do with being new, that is just common sense. The chef and owner then brought out our food and he was really nice, but the server never bothered to come back to the table after admitting that she had forgotten to send our order. After we finished eating, we had to get up to ask for our check because the server never came back to check on our table or even to drop the check off. She walked by our table several times because the restaurant is really small, but never bothered to stop or even check if we needed anything. To make matters worse, they added a 20% gratuity to the check, which would be acceptable if the service was at least average. We got a 10% (about $6) discount on the check which I don't believe is fair for a 1 hour wait to get our order and specially for breakfast food. The food is great, but I don't think it is worth the awful service, so maybe order takeout and avoid yourself the...

Save yourself some time. No, I don't mean, "Don't go to Chef Vargas": whatever else you do, you have to go here. I mean, don't walk into the main entrance of Elkins Park House apartments. Look off to the left: you see that door under the left wing of the complex, the one that looks like a service door or an emergency exit? Yes, that's it. Go in there, past the dance studio, and take a left just before you walk out the back door. That's Chef Vargas. This is comfort food, Mexican style. Cheese. Eggs. Robust warming sauces. Meat. I had the chilaquiles, taco chips simmered in that robust chili sauce (warming, not super hot) with cheese, with a chorizo-scrambled egg on top. It was spectacular: filling, satisfying, warming. My wife had the Southwestern Salad, which was also really good. She's looking forward to coming back, especially when there's cold and grey, and maybe snow or just slush. The foods will warm us wonderfully. We spoke with Chef Jose Vargas. They have no freezer: he shops five days a week, and all the food is fresh fresh fresh. The sauce—yes, that robust warming sauce—he starts several hours before they open, slowly building it up and simmering it until the flavor bursts out of the building. We talked of his background in Mexico City, his working as a chef in Tijuana, how they prepare things there. I can't wait to go back, but I must. That one dish has filled me for...