El Jefe Cocina & Bar — Restaurant in Minneapolis

Food: 3.5 stars Drinks: 3.5 stars Atmosphere: 2 stars

Got 3 fish tacos for $14. I asked to do 2 fish and 1 shrimp (shrimp are also $14 for 3), but was told I’d be up charged an extra dollar “for the inconvenience of mixing proteins”, so I decided against that option. Fish tacos were decent, but worth 4.67 a piece? Definitely not. R Taco is of comparable quality at like $3 per taco, Centro is far above in quality for a similar price to El Jefe (and you pay per taco instead of being forced to take 3 of the same). Also, chips at El Jefe are $2 and salsa is an additional $2.

Got a mezcal margarita. That was pretty tasty, probably solely because of the smoky mezcal they were using. The other parts of the drink were fine, but it was an $11 marg, so I was hoping for a little more flair or quality.

Atmosphere was terrible. They have space to put in a partial wall or vestibule inside the door, but just put up curtains. It’s a money-saver, that’s fine. However, they put up extremely thin curtains that completely blow in every time the door is open — rendering them useless. Very cold to sit near the door. The lighting was way too bright. There was no sense of seclusion, everything felt way too open. They need to paint their ceilings black and hang pendant lighting rather than cheap track lighting mounted up at ceiling height that over illuminates the entire space. They could also stand to put a wall between the kitchen and dining area; or at least a lower soffit that helps block the super bright kitchen lighting in the ceiling.

Conclusion: They really cheaped out on the space and they way overcharge on their food. Would...

A poor replacement for the excellent Saguaro .

I tend to classify "Mexican" food as street, homestyle, or elevated. Street food is probably my favorite, and some of the small family owned places do great homestyle, but if you're in the mood for something a little more I love finding a good elevated spot. El Jefe falls into none of these categories.

Our server was spot-on, if not a little too enthusiastic, but I should have known something was up with the nachos. The chips were satisfactory (though a little salty), but with nothing more than a pile of shredded iceberg lettuce and barely a dollop of guac I should have known something was up. The real insult though was the "nacho sauce", which was not at all flavorful and watery. I'd have rather had melted Velveeta and Hormel chili. Beneath all of this there weren't enough chips to actually use all of the provides toppings - but considering how disappointed I was, this wasn't any kind of real loss.

The drinks were adequate, but nothing at all to write home about. I had a mediocre margarita at best.

And then there were the main courses. I'm a huge fan of mole sauce, and their only enchilada offering has it, but there was something really off. It was barely tolerable with no real flavor other than that of smoke. Though I didn't try it, their taco wasn't at all interesting either.

I eagerly await the next restaurant to...

The only reason this has 1 star is because the chips and salsa tasted good, but the experience we had was bad. We got sat down at 6:45, did not see a waiter until 7, chips and drinks around 7:20, took our entree order at 7:50, food out at 8:30, grabbed our bill at 9:15 and even then that was over ten minutes charging our cards. We couldn’t believe we had just experienced almost a 3 hour meal at a casual restaurant. The staff was all over the place and each time we asked for more water, lime wedges, extra tortillas, or a new drink, it was either completely forgotten or with drinks it would come 15-20 later.

The drinks are pure sugar and watered down. The one I ordered was a spicy marg which I get almost everywhere I go. It was straight lemonade with jalapeño syrup and impossible to drink. My sister ordered an aperol spritzer and it was pure aperol over ice. She had to ask if it could have more Prosecco in it and instead of making a new drink they just brought her out a glass of Prosecco.

The food quality was nothing special. It was fine. We were putting a lot of salsa on our tacos so they could have more flavor, but overall it was just plain. Later that night, my sister and I who both had meat unfortunately got sick at the same time :/ This was the first meal we had out as a family in months and we were extremely...