Johnny Sánchez — Restaurant in New Orleans

We are from Pennsylvania and I have been wanting to come here and highly anticipated the eatery. From the start it was great that my plus size wheel chair was easily able to get in the door as I regularly have trouble with some establishments. Our waitress was kind and checked in with us often. However, I do feel that she could have been a bit more attentive to us especially since I disclosed we were from out of town and tourists when we asked her specifics about the menu. We dined during happy hour which is between 2and 6 I believe. She gave us quick answers and moved on but we were not familiar with the fact that you only get 1 taco when you order your specific. We ordered 1 of everything on the happy hour menu. Including a cocktail. The cocktail was good but It wasn't what I expected. The meatball and cauliflower tacos were wonderful. In my opinion the best part of what we ordered. The carnitas were VERY DRY. Definitely not what any establishment would strive for. There was a lot of it on the taco but it was too dry to enjoy so we doused it with some of the queso we ordered to get it down. We ordered 2 desserts. One was the cinnamon crunch cake and the brownie with bkk n gold. The brownie was supposed to be served warm at least but ours was cold. Even the waitress said oh yeah, you shouldn't be able to touch the cast iron when this comes out. Well in that case it was ice cold. She sent it back and told us they would make another one but came out quickly with the same one reheated which dried it out as well. There is a defined line between decedent and dry. This was dry. Sadly you could tell in the blunt center what this could have been from the first bite since the middle escaped the over heating where as it destroyed 80% of the serving. The other visible staff was disheartening as he had a slow and low energy about him that made us feel like with all the hiccups..if everyone working there moved at that pace...explains why the less enjoyable things prevailed. Sadly I can't say I have any plans to return. Unless I bring someone for the same reason I wanted to visit so badly. Which was the experience of dining somewhere you know that an owner set the bar high for good food. I gave 4 stars because I feel like it can be better and maybe we caught them on a bad day. FYI It was a Tuesday during mid happy hour and the place was nearly empty. By the time we got done about 1.5 hours later there had only been 4...

As food is the primary reason to visit this restaurant, the quality and value of the food is greater than the service. I am not a foodie or one who makes destination trips to try new places. I am an ordinary person who hates to eat because I feel there are other things to do (my ADHD mind) than eat. However, when I do eat, I want it to be good. I am not giving a negative review in the hopes they will grant me a free dinner later. I live nowhere this establishment and the cost of airfare would not be worth the trip to eat here. This review is based on my recent visit to see our daughter and SIL who live in NOLA. Any offer to try this restaurant would be instantly rebuffed as a "buy-out" to provide a good review. This is my honest opinion as a simple guy who expects the price of the dinner to equal the quality of the food. Below is my review.

This spot to eat was chosen by our daughter which included our SIL and their friends. We were excited to eat at a restaurant started and endorsed by Aarón Sánchez from Master Chef and other cooking shows. We valued his opinion along with his cohosts regarding contestants cooking. However, every plate (6 different ones) were disappointing for each person. Some spices over powered the meal whereas others could only taste the corn tortillas.

For the money we paid ($58 for two without alcohol) we felt we were fleeced of our money for a name. The previous night, we spent $30 w/o drinks at Juan's Flying burrito at a different location than the one around the corner and felt that we received better quality of food than what we were served at Johnny Sánchez.

Also, those who did order alcohol, they stated they were highly intoxicated after 1.5 cocktails and were unable to drive. My SIL and I spent an extra hour driving people home and it preempted our plans for the rest of the night.

We are not food snobs or travel distances to try new restaurants, however, when spending this amount of money to leave half of it behind due to poor flavor and palatability makes me truly wonder about these other celebrity chefs restaurants.

Aarón Sánchez needs to come back to this restaurant and whip everyone back into shape according to his vision.

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I was so incredibly excited to come here and the fact I have to leave a bad review is honestly heartbreaking. I visited on Thursday July 20th. First, their air conditioning was broken. This is something that was out of their control, especially when NOLA was experiencing very high temperatures. I probably could have overlooked this if the experience had been good, but when our server came over and I intended to ask a question about the ingredients in a particular dish, he interrupted me rudely and told that “yes, [the air conditioning] is broken and no, I can’t do anything about it.” I’m sympathetic that it was hot for the workers too but I just didn’t understand the need to interrupt me because that wasn’t even what I was going to say. Moreover, their menu does not match what is on the website, which is important for people with dietary restrictions. Trying to look past that we stayed, but as several of us have particular diets we had a couple of questions about ingredients and tried to communicate our allergies (gluten and dairy). My next red flag should have been the lack of care that seemed to go into listening to the allergies from the server. Sure enough, my friend’s taco came out with cheese on it. To be fair, we alerted the server and they replaced it immediately, stating that the kitchen knew they had made a mistake and were already replacing it. But my dish, which was inherently GF, didn’t taste good at all. The rice was bland and tasted old. The meat in my tacos were over cooked and chewy. The only good dish was my other friend’s vegetarian burrito, until she took one bite where all of the spice must have been and it was so overpowering she had to spit that part out. I was a huge fan of Aaron and I couldn’t wait to try this restaurant on my trip, but this experience makes me wonder why he even has the reputation he has. Very sad and...