Do you know when you´ve had a horrible experience at a restaurant and don´t want anyone suffering the same as you?

Well, this is my 2023 Valentine´s dinner story at Kioyu´s Restaurant. A little long but detailed so you have an idea of what you could expect if you ever visit the restaurant or try those chefs’ dishes.

It all started with my mom wanting to surprise us all by reserving a five-course dinner at a restaurant new for us, which was performing surprise dishes in charge of chefs Pedro Evia & Fernando Camarena that was costing $999mxn/person.

Kioyu Sky Lounge is a restaurant located in Mérida, Yuc., on the rooftop of the Courtyard Mérida Hotel; the restaurant has fantastic views and beautiful decorations that sadly weren´t enough to make us enjoy our evening.

To start we were all received with a Mezcalito that it was a Jamaica drink with mezcal; noting that this was the only drink included in the price of the dinner. If you don´t drink alcohol or mezcal as was the case of two people at our table, you needed to order an extra drink because they wouldn´t offer you anything in exchange for the welcome mezcal drink. 🚩

They were not offering any other non-alcoholic drink so their solution was to do a Jamaica which we accepted: for the other person the restaurant also didn´t have a cocktails drink menu 🚩, so they said that they could do whatever drink we wanted, so a Mojito was chosen for being an easier option to make.  The drink was not good and the mint leaves were black. 🚩

Passing to the food, the waits between every course and even just for the dishes of the dinner to start arriving at the table were just so long taking around 20 min and that was because we had to ask every time the servers about when our next course would be served. 🚩🚩

The first course started with the amuse-bouche, a mini meringue per person, with a meat broth fermented pineapple on top. The taste of the mix was a little weird as it was overwhelming sweet from the meringue, sour from the pineapple and very meaty from the broth fermentation. 

At the table, no one liked the first course but being the first and very small we ate it all and hoped that the next courses might be better. 

Oh, sweet mistake!

After many minutes of waiting we received the second course… A very odd-looking salad that was made with a few pieces of melon, a few non-cut baby romaine lettuce that was weirdly looking black🚩, some shredded carrot pieces, two blueberries and tiny pieces of strawberry and almond with a strawberry dressing.  

If you ignored the colour of the lettuce, you could eat the salad but it was so little that you would be wanting for your next course to arrive fast.  Which of course, didn´t happen.

And then, the soup arrived! Smelling amazing a Mushroom miso base soup that was tasting good but unluckily had been seasoned with a lot of black pepper to the point that it would burn your stomach.🚩 (A sensible stomach like mine ended up throwing up after the soup😞)

For the main course you could choose between meat or fish, our table was divided into three and three.

The people that chose fish made the correct decision as it was tasting ok and it was edible. But for the naive people like me that chose meat, we were just doomed!

As it was expected, we were not asked about how we wanted the term of our meat.🚩 It arrived extremely well-cooked🚩, to the point that it was very hard to cut with the meat knife, and well the taste was just ruined.

 At this point, we were just hoping for the dessert to arrive so we could eat something and not be starving still. But oh disappointment. A white chocolate mousse cake arrived that was tasty but extremely sweet which made it very hard to eat even for a sweet tooth person like me. 

Having finished the courses everyone being hungry still, we all decided that it was a good idea to talk with any of the chefs to leave the comments of our experience without complaining so they could analyze them and improve for their next events. 

A point I forgot to mention before, is that we saw Chef Pedro Evia sitting at a table talking with a couple of customers all night🚩,  and not in the kitchen. When we asked for a chef, Chef Camarena was the one that came to talk to us.

After we explained our experience, suggested their levels of pepper in the food, etc., Chef Camarena was arrogant, mentioning that that was their style of cooking and there was no space for changes, so we decided not to extend the conversation any longer.

So after this unfortunate dinner experience, we paid our bill in full & looked for a place that would be open for dinner on Valentine´s Day at around 10:30 pm.

A very sad moment as you can read.  This is a one-time experience that I would never wish for you!

Go, have fun, & enjoy all the food you eat in life!