Tu Madre — Restaurant in Los Angeles

Atmosphere: Overall, the restaurant had a great atmosphere and ambiance. The outdoor seating on the patio looked really nice, and the layout made sense. When I came here to celebrate my mom's birthday, we sat inside, but we wouldn’t have minded sitting outside either. This was during the heatwave in Los Angeles. The furnishings on the wall and the interior lighting were great.

Service: The server we had was a young lady who, while initially helpful, became less attentive as time passed. At one point, we had to ask another waiter for water because she wasn’t refilling it.

I ordered an Old Fashioned, and it took about 20 minutes before I actually received my drink. I had to ask our server twice about it. Meanwhile, the bartender behind us was chatting with another patron and was clearly distracted, which led to him forgetting my drink. He was very apologetic afterward, but I have to admit it bothered me because by the time I got my drink, I had already finished my food. I would have liked to enjoy the drink with my meal.

Food: Being Latino, I understand that not every restaurant will get Mexican food just right. However, I have to say that while this spot offers Mexican dishes, it seems to be more of a fusion of Tex-Mex than traditional Mexican. We ordered asada tacos, an asada burrito, some flautas, and an asada bowl. While everything tasted good, I don’t feel the portion sizes matched the prices.

Value: The pricing here can be a bit steep for certain items. Paying $10 or $11 for two tacos feels excessive when you can go down the street to a taco stand and get them for $2 each. I think the higher cost has more to do with the location and ambiance the restaurant is trying to provide. However, given the service, I’m not sure it fully justifies the prices.

Overall Experience: I would recommend this spot to someone who has never tried it before and is curious about what it offers. Will it be the best Mexican food you’ve ever had? No. For someone who doesn’t eat Mexican food often, it might be a great place to start. But I guarantee there are mom-and-pop restaurants in East LA, Northeast LA, or South Central that would give them a run for...

Probably the worst experience in my 40 years of age. Thursday around 8pm, maybe 6 tables in the whole restaurant: we are greeted by our server "you want to seat outside right?" No, no we want to seat inside (55 degrees for us californians is freezing cold) . We get sat at a booth that is absolutely filthy. We tried to move but the two adjacent tables weren't that much clean either. We get 5 menus dropped off, only 2 had a menu inside, the rest were just covers, lol. We ordered beers and nachos, but they never came out. After 25 minutes, I had to flag down the clueless manager to let him know. The nachos come out but not our share plates or silverware, again had to flag down the manager. We ordered our tacos with our server (whom I give him a pass because he seemed brand new, he didn't know how to operate the handheld order machine). We were a group of 6 and we each ordered 3 tacos (mind you, each tiny street taco is $8). The tacos come out and instead of being grouped as ordered, they were grouped by kind! So we each have to dance plates around the table sticking our fingers in each other's plates... embarrassing. By now our server was gone, never to be seen again. We were also missing some tacos that never came out. Half of the tacos were cold like they were left outside in the cold night (I am not joking, almost refrigerator cold). Again, I had to flag down the manager to inquire about the missing tacos. After 20 minutes we ask for the check and to make sure we were not charged for the tacos we never got. Indeed they were on the check. The clueless manager removed them. It is the first time ever I had to go out of my way to do a custom 10% tip for how amateur the service was. Hope this review helps...

My girlfriend and I have been a huge fan of the previous location of Tu Madre and were excited to try their new sit-down location on Hillhurst. We loved the food and ambiance of the new location, but we had such a bad experience with the service here.

When we sat down, our waitress offered still or sparkling water. We chose still, thinking we would get tap water, but instead we got a glass bottle of mineral water along with a pitcher of tap water. This was confusing and we asked our waiter if we would be charged for it and he said normally yes, but he wouldn’t charge us (this is now a new waiter, our previous waiter having left the restaurant without letting us know).

We ordered chips & guac and tacos, and after our order, our waiter brought us chips and salsa. If we had known there would be complimentary chips and salsa, we wouldn’t have ordered guac. However, our chips & guac never came and we had to ask them to take it off of the bill.

No one came to our table for a long time and we didn’t see our waiter again. We had to flag someone down to ask for the bill. When she gave us the bill, we were still being charged for the guac that never came and $8 for the bottle of mineral water! We had to argue with her about the mineral water and she never once apologized.

Overall, it seemed well-staffed, there was just a lack of communication between the workers. We’re really sad about how bad the service is here and hope it improves because we love the...