Restaurant Review: El Vitral

After listening to an NPR segment on San Diego's best Mexican restaurants, I decided I had to try El Vitral. It won the reviewer's choice for best high-end Mexican restaurant in San Diego (best cheap eats was Super Cocina).

El-vitral

I've eaten tons of great Mexican cheap eats in San Diego, but not a lot of high-end Mexican cuisine. I feel it's underrated - generally when they hear "Mexican" people think about burritos and tacos rather than the mole dishes or the Mayan delicacies. 

El Vitral is located right next to Petco Park, and it would make a great pre- or post-game spot for drinks, appetizers or dinner. They have a tequila list of probably more than 100 different kinds of tequilas. Their margaritas vary from classic to inventive, and they're all made from scratch - no mix, no simple syrup, no bottled juices. You can taste the quality.

I started off with "The Smoking Tippler" - reposado tequila, mango puree, chipotle syrup, lime juice.  It's a great choice for those who like smoky flavors like I do. It had a nice sweet and spicy thing goin' on. The honey had the "Tre-Some" margarita, with grapefruit juice, lime juice, orange juice, and habanero salsa. It sounded horrible to me but tasted refreshing.

We decided to do small plates for dinner. Three was the magic number, as we had a trio of guacamoles, a trio of ceviches, then quesadillas with squash blossoms, salmon al pastor tacos, and tacos with shrimp and mushrooms. Also rice and beans and platanitos (little plantains).

Everything was amazing. The tortillas are all handmade and I could eat them all day. The flavors in this food really jump out at you - even simple dishes like rice and beans were full of bright, fresh cilantro, and creamy black bean flavor. A meal like this makes you realize how bland some Mexican food can be.  

El Vitral is not cheap... we ordered a bit too much food, but after three margaritas and all that food we were at around $110 before tax and tip. But I think it's well worth another visit, and next time I'd like to try a Mayan dish. I've heard the churro dessert is great.

ElVitral_008

The final word 
(1-5 rating:  1=BAD, 2=mediocre at best, 3=ok, 4=wow, pretty good!, 5=one of my all-time favorites)

Food (Taste, Quality): 4.8
Value: 3.5
Service: 5
Ambience: 3
Memorable Experience: 4
Price: $18-35 per entree. Margaritas around $13.
Menu recommendations: Salmon tacos, shrimp and mushroom tacos, guacamole... ok, everything we had.
Notes:  A very open restaurant layout. Would be fun for a group. View of the ballpark. Outdoor seating available also.
Would I make a point to go again, paying full price?:  Yes

Comments

[RobotFaith]

[this is good] Sounds delicious!

[Steve Betz]

[this is good] Sounds excellent -- definitely worth adding to the to-try list.  The only "high-end" place we've gone for Mexican is El Agave.

[JsinGood]

[this is good] Technically, a simple syrup can be, and quite often is, made from scratch - although it's not usually found in a margarita, store bought or house made. The chipotle syrup was most likely an infused simple syrup.

Anyway, this place sounds fantastic. I really want to try it out.

Speaking of high-end Mexican, Rick Bayless just opened up a place in LA, finally, called Red O. Grace has already been there with her sister, and says it's great. We had reservations to the opening weekend, but had to cancel.

[HapaLove]

Maybe I misunderstood her "no simple syrup" as no purchased simple syrup, dunno. I actually like my margaritas with simple syrup, or at least, I like the recipe from Cook's Illustrated which calls for simple syrup. What else would you use - just cointreau?
Oooh... I've heard great things about Rick Bayless although never tried his recipes or restaurants. I'm still bound and determined to go to Bazaar one of these days, just haven't gotten around to it yet.

[HapaLove]

How was El Agave?  Is that in Old Town?

[JsinGood]

Or maybe they just meant no "simple" simple syrups, ie, nothing that
hasn't been infused with something. ;-)

I tend to like bitter/tangy drinks. Classically, a margarita should just
be tequila, lime juice and Cointreau/triple sec/orange liqueur. I think a lot of modern versions use a simple syrup. So,
they could have just been talking about their "classic" margaritas
(rather than their own artisan concoctions), which wouldn't have simple
syrup of any sort.

We should totally re-plan a Bazaar night. That's an entirely different level.

[Synthetic Grass Thousand Oaks]

thanks for the nice photos you've shared. good job