Cafe Pacifico

The food at Cafe Pacifico is definitely not worth the price. I had the grande chicken burrito (>£10) which was served covered in an italian-style tomato sauce and with a side of refried beans that looked like they had been sitting in the kitchen overnight (they had developed a crust). The guacamole was decent as were the cocktails but seriously overpriced and over hyped. Service was ok but not exceptional, atmosphere was subdued cantina style. This can in no way be called the best Tex-mex In London.
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Overall rating
Food 5 | Service 6 | Atmosphere 7 | Value for money 5
Sunday, August 05, 2007

I visited Cafe Pacifico last night with a friend of mine for a girly dinner on somebody's recommendation. Not sure where to start really. I appreciate that I am a bit of a food snob and also that Tex Mex restaurants are never renouned for being up there with the best restaurants in terms of food and qulaity but this place took the biscuit ! We arrived and were immediately shown to our table (really good start). Then we were provided with a bowl of stale Nacho's and some very tasty salsa in which to dip them. Salsa was nice and hot and had a nice flavour with fresh corinder and lots of diced onion. However the Nacho's were stale and that was not pleasant at all.

We ordered the Fajitas for two and were astounded that they were charging £1.50 extra for having cheese with them (really strange as in most Tex Mex Resturants its standard with the Fajitas and even when I visited Cabo San Lucas in Mexico you got cheese with your Fajitas..) Has cheese suddenly become a rare delicacy or something ? When the food arrived, (approx about 5 mins after we ordered it!) I was astounded at how very bad it was. The chicken was in a rather weak marinade and was far from worth the 28.95 we paid for a two person helping.

The atmosphere in the restuarant was fun but you literally had to clamber over tables to get to the toilets (which I may add were in poor condition with god knows what in puddles all over the floor).

Strikes me as a place where tourists will go, get ripped off and be happy to eat rap food at exorbitant prices...sad really as there are so many cheaper and nicer restaurants out there !

Quite frankly I am astounded that this place gets away with serving up stale badly cooked food and yet calls itself a genuine Mexican in London...poppycock ! The only decent mexican restaurant I have eaten in is Chico's in Harrow (north London)...if you are a fan get yourself down there (and they give you cheese !).
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doylee
Overall rating
Food 2 | Service 3 | Atmosphere 4 | Value for money 1
Friday, July 27, 2007

Cafe Pacifico is the closest thing to Mexican/TexMex food that I've come across in London, but it was a shame that it came at such a price! One of the fun things about TexMex is that it usually means large portions for a small cost, but Cafe Pacifico was the exact opposite. Contrary to what other posters have written I couldn't call the service any more or less apathetic than other London restaurants, but the hostess was rather surly when seating our party of two in a relatively empty restaurant on a Tuesday evening. The food was good, although it didn't perfectly replicate American TexMex. I would go back if I thought it was worth the money.
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Sarah
Overall rating
Food 7 | Service 5 | Atmosphere 5 | Value for money 3
Sunday, May 27, 2007

the food is good, actually it is really nice. but the service was.......well there was no service really.the waitstaff came to the table three times during the entire meal, and im not exaggerating, i swear i'm not, but the only words they said to us were 'can i take your order', they named the dishes as they put them down and 'are you finished'. i couldn't order a drink or a dessert as there wasn't a waiter around, no pepper offered, no fingerbowl offered, no checkback on the meal (it was ok but if it hadn't had been i would have had to go and find a waiter myself as they just weren't around ), no desserts or coffee offered, no drinks offered even though we sat with empty glasses the entire meal......nothing. after finishing the mains we sat there for absolute ages like idiots trying to catch someone's atention so that we could get the bill. and then just to top it off they stick a service charge on the bill....for what????!!!! crap service i can accept, they're a bad restaurant and that's their choice. but to expect people to pay for the service, for the first time in my life i actually felt like punching a member of the staff in a restaurant. foods good, but don't bother going there, really it's just not worth it.
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Raj
Overall rating
Food 8 | Service 0 | Atmosphere 0 | Value for money 6
Thursday, May 17, 2007

Good food and service. Amazing atmosphere.

For better mexican food - go to Crazy Hommies. (Though the ambiance is not as good as Cafe Pacifico.
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ANM
Overall rating
Food 7 | Service 8 | Atmosphere 10 | Value for money 5
Monday, May 14, 2007

Very dissapointing. We arrived on Friday at 7.30pm according to our reservation which was made 2 weeks in advance and were told that we would have to wait for over an hour. After waiting at the busy bar for about 1.5h we reminded the manager about the table. We were told that some people were leaving and we would have their table in a few minutes. When nothing happened after another twenty minutes we asked the manager again and she told us that the table was gone. We were shocked because we were there for a birthday party, but she seemed really annoyed and said there was nothing she could do. We finally got sitted at around 9.25pm and waited another half an hour to order - apparently "there were no available waiters to look after our table"!

The food was good, but extremely poor service spoiled the whole evening.

Never again.
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Natasha
Overall rating
Food 7 | Service 0 | Atmosphere 2 | Value for money 1
Sunday, February 25, 2007

Terrible place to take a party with you. Arriving at 6:40pm to guarantee enough time for a table at 7:15, my entire party were finally seated at 8:30! The hostess taking the bookings to seat us had attitude which which would rival any Ghetto Jenny from the Block. Either it was her poor organisation skills to arrange our table, or it was her forgetful self but she claimed she couldn't find us and gave our table away. A lie, as half of us were standing no more than 6 feet away from her and she knew we were together. She tried to make it sound like it was our fault to cover her own back to the manager, which we obviously were not buying. Thereafter the hostess kept dismissing us to come back every 10 mintues.

My party were starving, annoyed and shocked by the customer service. When we finally got a table, they miscalucated the number and made us go back to the bar to shove a little table on the edge. From this point onwards the mood was too spoilt to improve; the food just tasted mediocre (to be honested it was nothing authentic but like giong to chiquitos). And we had 2 near misses of being covered in taco sauce and oil from the sardine-like arrangement of tables. And to top it off they said you can only have this table for 2 hours?!? No apology or complimentary snacks/drinks given for the entire experience. One of my party members spoke to the manager about the hostess and she said "she's usually very polite, i'll speak to her" and walks away without even talking to her about her poor service.

It was only when we left and got some air before going into a pub that the atmosphere improved for us.

I never write reviews but was so disgusted by last night that I actually decided to leave a warning for anyone who may think this quirky little hot spot may be nice option out - it wasn't! I felt awful making my party stand around for so long. Save yourself the embarrassment. I will never got here again.
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Overall rating
Food 5 | Service 0 | Atmosphere 3 | Value for money 6
Sunday, February 18, 2007

Went here tonight as a group of five. Margaritas were good, although pricey, and the food was fantastic, but the atmosphere was what did it for me; a busy wait at the bar for a table and then the tightly packed layout would both be indicators of a poor restaurant, but they created a community feel and interaction with other diners was common and friendly. We were surprised to see Emma Watson from Harry Potter come in for a meal too. Having experienced everything from Taco Bell to Mexican Mexican, this was on the upper end of the scale; not flawless but great enough that I just wanted to go again, right then and there.
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Overall rating
Food 8 | Service 8 | Atmosphere 10 | Value for money 6
Sunday, January 28, 2007

From one native Texan's (living in London for 7 years) point of view, Cafe Pacifico is by far the best Mexican food in London. The food is really good and it's much more authentic than the numerous other places that pose as Mexican restaurants in London (you know those that I'm talking about -- they i.) also serve burgers, fries, ribs, etc, ii.) they don't serve re-fried beans, iii.) they make enchiladas with flour tortillas, iv.) they serve salsa that tastes like tomatoe sauce, v.) they serve the dishes with white or saffron rice, etc.
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Overall rating
Food 9 | Service 7 | Atmosphere 8 | Value for money 7
Monday, January 22, 2007

The service in the restaurant is terrible. They could care less about providing you with a nice evening. The food was great! The margaritas were terrible, all three of them that my group had. It is hard to see the restaurant as good, when the service really provides a negative experience.
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Jill
Overall rating
Food 9 | Service 2 | Atmosphere 6 | Value for money 5
Sunday, January 07, 2007