Hartwood

You can only make reservation in person at 3pm each day for dinner. We waited an hour to put our name down for 630pm dinner. This rustic kitchen serves flavorful fusion dishes from fish to meat. We ordered ceviche, grilled fish with vegetables and catch of the day – all very good. Friendly staff, quick service, great mixed drinks. If you are a wine gal like myself, don’t expect a great list, they need work.
If you are in tulum, give it a go!

In planning a trip to tulum from nyc I was investigating the dining options prior to going. The New York Times had written the hartwood up as being super fresh in not only ingredients but attitude and ambiance which is the absolute best way to describe it. Mostly outdoors, Hartwood puts you in touch with the tropical laid back feel of the area.

It’s not hype at all. Food is great and drinks are excellent. Starting with the cons: no reservations and have to get in line at 2 if you want to dine there that night. Wait staff is fine but as with most restaurants in Tulum, after you get your food, they usually just kinda disappear. Pros: food. Ceviche yucatan, jicama salad, ribs, octopus and fish are seriously awesome. Oh, and the side of a grilled/​roasted whole beet is so delish, l’d go back just for that.
Dinner for two with each getting an appetizer and an entrée will run you about $ 120 US. Plus drinks. They only take cash — plenty of ATMs around.

This place is not just hype as others have stated. And I’ve been to several other countries that serve similar dishes like octopus in Greece, Italy, and Spain. Hartwoods’ Pulpo is the jam people. Ignore the haters.
Listen, I’m sure people have reason to be bitter here. The table bookings are annoying, having to wait in line by 230 for a the hostess to arrive by 3, to give a your name for a table at 8pm that night. And when u get there with your party at 8, you may have to wait for 30 min to sit. And when you sit you may get the feeling that they are trying to serve your food back to back for quick turnover. But pace your own order. Get the ensalada de langosta– it’s amazing. Order the Octopus– it’s amazing. Order sides of roasted plantains and an order of roasted Beets over cilantro cream. Why? Cause it’s amazing. And it’s worth the money! Other dishes of not that were on the «very good» level, but not amazing– would be the ribs, and the arrachara. Get over there and enjoy yourself. But first you just have to get over yourself. Cause in Tulum, being stuck on yourself is quite possible. And if that’s you reading this, do us all a favor and stay in New York, or LA and leave the rest of us more space to enjoy our dinning and partying

I had the most amazing dinner with a group of 9 of friends at Hartwood to celebrate a birthday last week.
First, a couple notes on reservations at Hartwood. Without a reservation you could possibly wait for hours for a table, unless you have epic timing. We made our reservation way in advance — because that’s how we roll. Hartwood only takes reservations for parties of 8 or more and they will not seat you until your entire party is present. I was told by a friend (not sure if this is true) that you have until 15 minutes after your reservation time for your entire party to arrive or you lose your reservation, and you can’t just saunter in with 6 people and say two people dropped out and expect to keep your reservation.
Needless to say, we all made sure we were on time and even with our reservation, we had to wait an hour for our table. Not a big deal, they brought us cocktails.
So why a five star review? The food was simply that good. On our server’s suggestion, we ordered an appetizer for every two people, along with one bonus appetizer (for the 9^th person), and an entrée per person. We passed all of the dishes around and everyone got a tiny taste then each person gorged themselves on their own entrée. I highly recommend this so you get to taste as many dishes as possible. Every dish was scrumptious! I got the jimaca salad and the octopus — both were beyond delectable. After everyone had a little bite, I hoarded my dishes and gobbled them down.
I’m not a big dessert person but the table ordered an assortment of ice creams and they were also quite nice — even the corn flavored ice cream (who knew?).
So my advice is to get a group of 8 reliable people, make a reservation before you even head to the Yucatan, and arrive on time. If your table is not ready, you can order one of their enchanting cocktails, relax on a bench in the waiting area and people watch. And seriously, get the freaking jicama salad and the octopus, it will blow you away.

This place is adorable. The restaurant is so romantic and the service was very good. We stopped by on a very busy night and enjoyed a few fantastic drinks. Next time I am in town I will definitely make a reservation.

I’ll make it short and sweet:
— It’s mostly Hype.
— The food is nice but nothing special… If you never traveled you might be impressed by fresh ingredients but honestly I’ve been to Greece, France, Italy and Mexico were it’s not that big of a deal to grill a freshly caught fish on a grill …
— Service is poor. Waiters have an attitude and you can tell they really try to get you out of your table to have a good turnover…
Overall there’s better places to go to. It’s nothing bad but nothing special and very overpriced for Tulum… It’s like NYC prices and attitude in Mexico.
Enjoy!

The good–
–Drinks were delicious and different
–Ambience was romantic and we had such a great time eating under the stars
–The food was scrumptious– jicama salad, lobster salad, filete de robalo and costillas al agave. My favorite were the costillas, meat fell right off… And that lobster salad! Wow.
The ok–
–The servers were attentive (maybe a little too much– one of them sat with us at very small table and chatted, we were on our honeymoon)
The bad–
–We had to stop by at 3pm and make reservations, then return by 5:30pm.
FYI– cash only usd or pesos, mosquitos didn’t bother us.

Everything cooked to perfection. The baked/​grilled octopus was heavenly. Drinks were tasty and service was mellow and relaxing
Ask your hotel to make reservations or you’ll have to wait in line at 3.
They take pesos or American dollars only. No cards.

Ignore what the website says — you WILL need a reservation and have your hotel help you out (or stand in some line that they have in the afternoon). Because simply coming and saying you’ll wait for a table will be met with blank stares.

For me the hype was also totally worth it… the food was amazing… I loved the empanadas… my fish dish was probably one of the best I’ve ever had and we travel everywhere. Staff was super friendly and accommodating (we were able to get a reservation for the bar when we arrived 1.5hrs before it opened).definitely a little pretentious but we live in NYC and are use to it!

The best costillas I’ve ever had! Beautiful restaurant. Excellent service. Amazing ambiance. I’ll be back every time I visit Tulum. Definitely get there before opening to make a reservation.

Reading the reviews, it’s clear that there’s a ton of hype (isn’t that why we all went there in the first place?) and that getting in is a nightmare. That said, I have to say we were privileged enough to stay at a hotel that somehow got us kind of a reservation, which sounds pretty extraordinary after reading these horror stories about getting in — something we’d tolerate in NYC where we live but seems a little, shall we say, un-​vacation-​ly.
Service — we had totally great service. From the server that took our drink order and kindly tussled our son’s hair (don’t judge, we’re on vacation with a 2.5 yo and ¹⁄₃ of the tables had kids with them too — it’s the Brooklyn way) when we came in and when my husband had to take our son out because he melted down since we kept him up past his bedtime since this place opens at 6. They have high chairs and they’re very cute. Everyone was nice to us and our waiter explained stuff, the food came quickly, and while our server was absent when we needed the check (again, unhappy toddler and we wanted to vacate before it got worse) it took a little while longer than it should’ve.
Price — our dinner for two-​ish, jicama salad, empanadas, ribs, fish, camote, plantain, ice cream, two alcoholic drinks and a bottle of mineral water was $ 137 US. Brooklyn prices. which was ok but felt odd to me given that we weren’t in NYC we were in the jungle and thus covered with flies the entire time …
Ambience — It’s a lovely spot and the heaping counters of produce and delicious smells are inviting. It feels cheerful and boisterous and hip even with a toddler on your hip. It’s also outside, and thus — we had small flies on us the entire time we ate. I attract bugs, so I had them the worst. The servers carry buckets of smoke around to get rid of bugs and I hope this wasn’t related but we had the seat by the bathroom and when I looked around just us and table next to us were swatting them most. I mean swatting as in I couldn’t take a bite without swatting — and I was eating fast given aforementioned cranky toddler. I had sprayed bug spray anticipating mosquitoes, not small black flies. yuck. But maybe this is the city girl coming out.
FOOD — my husband gushed about the ribs and the jicama salad was delish. empanadas cooked over a fire? eh, skip ‘em. The fish was great and what the fire did to the sweet potato and plantain was extraordinary and fun. The ice cream for dessert was some of the best I’ve had in years (corn, cheese) and I wish we’d ordered more. Drinks were meh — I ordered Mexican wine (idk) and my husband had the hartwood and didn’t like it, so I think that was the wrong step on our end.
Our question was: Was this dinner worth keeping a kid up two hours past his bedtime and suffering a remaining day on vacation with an overtired toddler? While it was delicious, in retrospect I said no although my husband said yes. I gave 4 stars because that was our issue, not the restaurant’s, but something to think about when you go

I give this place 3.5 stars, 4 if I’m feeling generous. I had heard about this restaurant from too many bloggers and travelers alike that I just had to go. It definitely did not exceed my expectations, but it just met them. I wouldn’t say I was disappointed because the food was good, but I wasn’t extremely wowed by anything… except the appetizers. The smoked fish salad and empanadas were delicious. Dishes I would certainly order again. The fish on the menu was also very nice. The octopus was good, but I’m comparing it to the octopus that I had the night before at ARCA and that was sooo good. Don’t get me wrong, the octopus here is delicious, but since I had a really perfect octopus dish the night before this one it was hard not to compare by the decimals (a tad bit salty for my taste here).
I read an article about Hartwood from 2012, but I’m not sure if it’s changed since it’s been a while, but it said that all their food is cooked in the wood-​fired oven and the only other kitchen appliance they have is a blender that is run off a generator. If that’s the case I’m impressed and it totally would bump those 3.5 stars up to 4.
The feel of the restaurant is super cute with only a few menus standing up around the restaurant so your server can explain everything to you on the menu. The kitchen is open so you can look into it and also looks super cute as well. I recommend going at 3pm on the day you want to get reservations to put your name in for the time you want to dine, otherwise you probably won’t get a table– that’s how fast this place fills up!
Overall, it’s a good dining experience and I would recommend going, but I would say to also check out ARCA just down the road as I really, really enjoyed that restaurant.

We read the NY Times review for this restaurant and decided to check it out. The Unilocal reviews were mixed so we were anxious to see the real story.
This was one of the best meal experiences I have ever had. The staff from beginning to the end were fabulous.
I had the ceviche yucatan appetizer… awesome. My main meal was grilled octopus… The best I ever had. My husband had grilled fish. Fresh and flavorful.
I can honestly say this was an A+ meal.
Thank goodness we ignored the bad reviews. We have no complaints. Would highly recommend this restaurant to anyone and will definitely return.

Should be renamed Hart (less)wood.
Going for dinner is never just about the food. It’s about the experience and I can honestly say I was hard pushed to find any positives about my trip to Hartwood this time. I’d been before 2 years ago and it was like going to a different restaurant.
The team behind Hartwood has done a spectacularly amazing job at its marketing and hype. However, in my opinion, all the hype seems to have ruined it. For much of our meal we were dumbfounded that what we were witnessing was real life, real spice.
Where do we start?
Ok. Dancing the dance to actually get a table. We played by the rules, we eventually got in. Huzzah. It’s worth mentioning it did take 4 attempts, but how can you do Tulum and not do Hartwood we thought.
We arrived and were brought to our table straight away by the ‘hostess’ — we’ll use that term loosely for the sake of the review as she was very far from the dictionary definition of the word. No offer of drinks no explanation of how the menu works. Literally shown our table. No one approached us for at least 10 minutes. We stopped one of the 15 staff to ask about a drink. He told us he wasn’t in charge of that, he’d send someone. We noticed the menus around the place in Spanish so asked him if he could tell us what was on the menu. ‘Some salads, ribs, other great stuff’- walks off. Oh. I get the big production they make from reading out the menu but there was no mention that this was about to happen.
Someone eventually comes to take our drink order. I order two as it doesn’t look like we’re going to be on a roll with the ordering.
Third server comes and introduces herself. To say she was terrifying was an understatement. I’d liken her attitude to a robotic prison guard telling us what we were being served as punishment for the day. During the reading of the menu ceremony we asked her a couple of questions. She did not like that and made us feel awful for even daring to ask anything or not remembering what was in the first thing she read out. Someone stood in the way of the menu she was reading (queueing for the toilet) and was scorned and scolded for daring to get in her way. Honestly, we were terrified of her.
We decided we’d both just get main and ordered ribs. We were told the ribs take ages coming from the oven and that we should get starters. We’d just gotten our drinks at this stage so declined — we were happy enough. She walked away, we had a quick discussion and thought we should maybe get a starter on second thoughts. We called her back, told her we thought she had been right and we’d get a salad. Eyes rolled, she went off and added the salad to our order. 5 mins later the ribs arrived. And I say arrived… they were flung onto the table by yet another server, not a word spoken on their delivery. Our sides came 5 mins later. In the meantime we asked if we could cancel the starter we’d ordered seen as we’d now received (loose use of the word) our main. She obviously was not impressed with yet another ridiculous request from us.
Food was good. It wasn’t my favourite in Tulum but it was good. Based on the psychology of eating, it probably would have tasted better if our surrounding experience was better. The whole time we were eating we were circled in rotation by the ‘hostess’ gauging at what stage we were at and how long more before she’d get her precious table back and our angry, attitude laden server who was, what we can only assume, planning our murder (yes, she was that terrifying). We were sitting near the kitchen so spent a good amount of time watching the millions of staff with glazed over eyes looking bored out of their minds, with no sign of a smile or any interaction between each other.
The only thing to add any heart to Hartwood was Valentine. He was warm, friendly, welcoming and a joy giver, everything Hartwood was not.
We ordered another drink and were asked if we wanted a dessert. We declined, 2 mins later our bling was flung onto the table. «hope you enjoyed your night». Em, No actually.

For me, this place lived up to the hype. I tasted nuanced favors that I’ve yet to experiance and they worked (!). To me, that’s the mark of a top notch restraunt. I can’t say anything great about any particular plate, it just all worked very well. I will say, however, that pickled pineapple now goes in my top ten.
Despite what others have said on here, I had no issues with the staff. They were all very friendly to my wife and I.
A helpful note: As of now, the hostess gets there at 2pm, so I’d recommend getting there to lineup for a dinner «reservation» at about 1:30−145. That said, people complain about the queue time changing. If you have the chance, head over to Heartwood when you get into Tulum and try to find out when the hostess gets in. Just figure to be there about 15−30min before she gets there.

Food was excellent.
The grilled octopus was so ridiculously tender, each bite was pillowy heaven. I think lobster is overrated, but the flavor on this lobster was impressive. Ceviche was wonderful and the speciality cocktails were delicious as well. The empanadas were the only dish that wasn’t a standout.
So why 3 stars?
The wait/​service: Talk about attitude. You should arrive at least 1.5 hrs before the place opens at 6 pm to ensure a reservation. Advance reservations are only for groups of 8+. When we dined, Hartwood actually opened at 5:15 pm because they felt like it. When we arrived at 6:15, the wait list was already full. The guy at the front immediately turned us and everyone else away. No explanation for how the process works. Luckily we had a tip from a friend to be persistent, grab some drinks from the bar, and wait it out. Which we did.
We managed to find the last open spot in the waiting area to sit down, grabbed a couple cocktails, and waited an hour. Ended up being seated at a communal table with two other couples.
So if you are persistent, you can get a spot. They just don’t tell you and prefer to turn people away.
*Cash only, and fairly pricey, so make sure you bring enough. At least 500 pesos per person to be safe, definitely more if you are drinking.
**Also it’s very dark after sunset (candles provide the light), so be careful about what you eat. The head part of the lobster was completely raw, but A did not notice this until he took a bite. Cue 6 hours of violent food poisoning and throwing up twice an hour. I was lucky and only ate from the cooked tail portion, so I escaped a night of hell.

An outstanding, unique experience.
First of all, five practical things you must know:
1) The place is closed Mon and Tues.
2) Hartwood is Cash Only and the nearby ATMs when I visited were a) not working and b) sketchy anyway. (Some techies we chatted with while waiting said NEVER use those ATMs.) If you have US dollars, Hartwood will accept them (but it’s better to change to pesos ahead of time for a better exchange rate).
3) The first seating is at 6: pm but to get a table it is wise to arrive at 5: pm. Bring a bottle of wine (and glasses) to enjoy while you wait for entry.
4) One of the waiters will perform a Mayan cleansing ritual with pom (copal) smoke shortly after guests are seated. This serves to drive off mosquitoes. If you are sensitive, bug spray is warranted. The mosquitoes didn’t bother us.
5) Some of the wait staff are veterans, very knowledgeable and helpful, and others are… not. Mariano and Valentino are both great.
If you have 4 or more people at table, I suggest you get ALL the apps and an entrée for every two people. The Jikima Salad is a must. A mackerel Ceviche was gorgeous and perfectly balanced, on another occasion a tuna Ceviche was not. The pork ribs are 16 hours in wood fired oven, then bathed in agave honey and grilled upon order. Foolish to come to Tulum and not have these (unless you are vegetarian, keep kosher, halal, etc.) My vegetarian wife was quite happy with an off menu offering waiter Mariano arranged for her, an elaborated version of a poblano side dish. We have wine, others rave about the cocktails.

After hearing great reviews of this restaurant, and hoping to be chosen as one of the lucky ones when we drove by every day and saw the line, I was excited to give it a try! Unfortunately, my expectations were let down.
Hartwood was opened by a couple of ex-​pat new yorkers. The concept of using all local ingredients and their only power source coming from the solar panels is rather unique — If you’re in a big city somewhere. But, face it, pretty much all of Tulum is off the grid, and if you’re NOT using fresh local ingredients these days, shame on you!
The service is definitely not the best, but I was on «island time» — but our server was aloof and not very attentive — felt like we were bothering him to be there.
The drinks were fun — they make great use of all the tropical juices available. And the menu was intriguing — very creative, but the food fell short. And the prices were, well … New York.
Look around before you fall in love with this place for «what it is» — There are so many wonderful options in Tulum.