Toro — Restaurant in Denver

The food and drinks were absolutely amazing, as always. However, the service during our visit was deeply disappointing.

We were seated outside in 90-degree weather due to a lack of available space. While this was initially understandable, it became frustrating when we noticed open tables inside throughout the evening. It didn’t appear that any effort was made to move or accommodate our party despite the extreme heat. To make matters worse, the outdoor area smelled strongly of propane. When we brought this up, the manager assured us it would "pass," but the odor lingered the entire time, leaving us nauseous. A simple addition of outdoor fans could have gone a long way in improving the experience—many restaurants (even less upscale ones) manage this consideration with ease.

Unfortunately, it gets worse. Due to the heat, my water glass shattered while I was drinking from it. Glass splintered onto the table and the ground, nearly cutting me, and the water spilled onto my dress and nearly soaked my $2,000 purse. When I told our server, he seemed entirely unphased—no apology (at least not one I heard), no acknowledgment of the seriousness of what happened. He moved on to taking drink orders as if nothing had occurred.

A manager eventually came by, offered a brief apology, and cleaned up the mess with some napkins. I was given a new water, but that was the extent of the response. The entire situation was treated casually, with a noticeable lack of empathy or professionalism.

We were there to celebrate my husband’s birthday, and during dinner, sauce was spilled on his white shirt when it was added tableside. While minor, it added to a growing list of avoidable mishaps. He was given a complimentary dessert, but that’s customary and didn’t feel like a gesture of goodwill under the circumstances.

We’ve been to Toro before and had an incredible experience—our previous server was warm, attentive, and truly elevated our visit. This time, however, the contrast was stark and deeply disappointing.

It’s unfortunate that the service was so poor, to the point where we’re genuinely reconsidering returning. The food is exceptional, but this experience left us feeling...

What to say about this place… not a pleasant experience unfortunately. First the pros: the staff was friendly. The presentation of the food was nice, especially the dessert. The lomo saltado was good but we requested it be over fries instead of the rice it comes with, which they accommodated.

The cons: We tried a variety of things from the menu and spent around $200 for 2 people. I’ll start with the appetizers. The guacamole was ok, about what you’d expect from any restaurant really. Which is why at $14 I’d say it was not great. I expected something more flavorful and less generic. The caprese salad with burratta was… odd. The entire time we were here I couldnt figure out what flavors they were going for. A lot of the flavors didn’t seem to work well together (or maybe it was the execution? Either way…) This dish highlighted that point in that there was watermelon in It a balsamic reduction and fennel. There was also a strange sauce that looked tasty, but had an almost fishy taste. The cheese itself was good. We also ordered the lobster Mac and cheese, and the 30 day dry aged ribeye. The lobster Mac hardly contained any lobster, a few pieces about the size of a corn kernel, and what lobster was in there was the very ends of the claws that tends to be quite rubbery and tasteless. I suspect they use the better parts for a different dish. We ordered a truffle fries to replace it, and while the fries themselves were good, they seemed to forget the truffle (the waitress happily replaced them and took them off the bill). The ribeye was decent for a $62 dish. It does keep cooking on the skillet while it’s at the table so be sure to order rare. The chimichuri was ok, but the other sauce it came out with (I think it was a bbq) was nothing special. We got the chocolate bomb for desert and the presentation was novel and entertaining, and the ice cream good. However there were parts of the cake underneath that were extremely crunchy and hard to eat.

So final verdict is value is ‘meh’, and there are a lot of good ideas, but the flavors and quality just don’t seem to be...

Cocktails were amazing, chicken was great, but the burrata & tomato salad and Colorado beef roll were underwhelming (salad) and not all that edible (roll). The Mercado margarita was mind blowingly good and the Oaxaca old fashioned was whisky and smoke forward, in the best way. Cusco half chicken was flavorful, with an acidic tomato achiote marinate in layers among on the chicken and velvety mashed potatoes. My partner was thrilled with his meal! My tomato burrata salad was fine, but not very good. The “watermelon vinaigrette” wasn’t flavorful enough to be detected, the watermelon chunks were very watery and flavorless while several of the tomatoes were bad (mushy/overripe). The shaved fennel was the main flavor-giver but there were a total of 3 pieces of it. The burrata was fine, but seemed to just be everyday belgioioso/grocery burrata. If it had been on a bed of shaved fennel with smaller watermelon pieces (even if less ripe/flavorful in the off season) with less balsamic and more “watermelon vinegrette” it might’ve been delicious. But as is, it was underwhelming. The Colorado beef roll was inedible, as it was drenched in the yuzu aioli. Which tasted out of a Mayo container, not a fresh aioli with yuzu (which I’d expect to be light, punchy citrusy, and creamy - not harsh vinegary mayo with extra acid). The torched shaved filet (not flambeéd, as the menu says) was poorly trimmed so that about half of the pieces were connective tissue from the filet trim (rather than thin filet meat as some of the pieces were - see photo), so the texture was very off. The roll and salad sound great in concept, but just seemed to be poorly executed. The service was fantastic, they took the roll off our order since it wasn’t all that edible, but we were excited to come for the food and were disappointed in two ingredient-forward dishes. However the cocktails were amazing and we’d come back just for the service and...