El Gato Negro

The food here is underwhelming. Nothing necessarily wrong with it. Just not seasoned and done authentically.
However, the drinks here are on point! This is a place that you go to if you really enjoy tequila. Only reason I will ever go in here.

Party of one for dinner promptly seated and my server Jorge immediately took my drink order. When he returned with my beverage he asked if he could help with any menu questions.
He made some excellent recommendations concerning my order. I had the stuffed avocado with corn tortillas. The stuffed avocado had shrimp, corn, mushrooms, cheese, and a sauce. It was a perfect balance of flavors and the corn tortillas were among the best I’ve ever had.
Excellent food and service on my visit leads me to rate this establishment 5 stars. I’m sure the dynamics change at peak business times but I’ll definitely be back for some great food!
This is the French Quarter location across from the French Market.
DAY TWO UPDATE
Stopped in at lunch and was promptly greeted by the hostess. Asked to be seated outside so I could watch the world go by. Started with a pineapple cilantro margarita and it was an absolute stunner. Like no other I’ve ever had. My server, Nelson listened to my interests and I have a reduced ability for quantity due to weight loss surgery. He made a perfect recommendation of a pork taco with poco de gallo and mole sauce with a small portion of beans, served with a home made corn tortilla. The flavor profile of this dish was amazing and could be my favorite of a weeks worth of dining in Nawlins.
Nelson was very personable, efficient, and customer oriented. The continued achievement of superior performance keeps me at 5 stars. The owner should be very proud of this well oiled machine.
DAY THREE UPDATE
Sammy completed the perfect trifecta for this business. Once again my server, Sammy made an excellent suggestion for an excellent lunch. Efficiency, attention to detail, and customer satisfaction is a common thread for each and every person I’ve encountered here.
Great job Juan!

LISTEN PEOPLE: Between the four of us, We ate here THREE DAYS IN A ROW for FOUR MEALS while we were at Jazz Fest 2016. The first night, my girlfriend and I ate there, the second she ate there with her husband and my husband and I went later, and the third night, we all four went.
The food is straight up amazing. This is NOT that «Mexican Restaurant» in the old Hardees building in your hometown. I don’t even know if this is «Authentic Mexican.» What I do know is that it’s delicious, and if I lived in NOLA, I’d eat here weekly.
Atmosphere: There are two tables on the sidewalk, about 18 inside, then another 3 – 4 in a little patio out back. The decorations are super cute, some typical Spanish style, lots of empty liquor bottles, and the women’s bathroom is adorable (and clean!). In fact, the cleanest restaurant outside of Arnauds that we hit all week. That is so nice! The really nice thing is that it’s kind of set back away from the real touristy areas, so we never had to wait for a table, even though it was always doing a brisk business. It’s kind of like our own, secret restaurant that we only share with the coolest people. The inside tables are nice because they’re close enough that you can strike up a comfortable conversation with those around you if you so desire. Of course, you can also hear some really dumb stuff even if you don’t so desire, so keep that in mind. We had to endure ten minutes of the morons next to us comparing some dumb person to someone with Autism — well our son is Autistic so it was tough to listen to, but we were on vacation so I chose not to advocate that night. Some people are just awful, but fortunately the food is good enough here that it was easy to forget. Towards the end of our meal, the coolest people from Florida showed up, thought and we chatted with them until we left. Nice folks!
Service: Two of the nights we got really excellent service, but the night my husband and I ate there, our waiter was off. In his defense, it sounded like he had a nasty cold, though, and I think they were light on servers anyway. Kudos to him for showing up, but then again, our waiter had a nasty cold. Looking forward to mine in about a week and a half. Guess what? Still WORTH IT!
Food: Honestly, if you served me food like this, it could be on a milk crate, in a dirty alley, with a waiter who punched me in the face between courses. I’d be cool with it. We weren’t drinking, so I got a cherry coke and a water (the cherry coke came with enough grenadine to drop a horse, god I love the South). The last night my husband got a sangria and my friend’s husband had a beer, both were fine.
The first night, I got the ground beef tacos, a side of beans, and the table side guac. I don’t know what they do to their meat, but it’s pure magic. My tacos didn’t even have cheese, and ya know what? I’m so cool with that. Because it would have masked that beautiful, tender, flavorful beef. My friend had the RIDONKULOUS (yes, I used that word) skirt steak quesadillas, which I got the next night. Again, the beef is the key. Something they do makes it melt-​in-​your-​mouth tender and oh so flavoricious. And the cheese on the quesadillas? Never got gloopy or stringy like some cheese after it cooled off. It was just like a dairy pillow in your mouth. All the veg was sautéed in, I dunno, probably fairy glitter, but it was amazing, too. And the table side guacamole? Let’s just say that I would do unspeakable things to it if it were a human. We got it with the jalapeño on the side, though, because it looked like a lot and my friend doesn’t like it too spicy. It was fine just to mix a few pieces in here and there for you. It’s WAY too much guac for two people, though, but for the four of us on the last night, it was perfect. The last night, I just had a salad, and it was, well, a salad. But my stomach was revolting from all the rich foods we’d gorged on for three days. So it worked.
All in all, I give this place a «HELL YES» and if you don’t hit it up at least once while you’re there, the jokes on you my friend.

YUM!!! This place was the perfect meal. Located right across from the market, with most of the seating indoors, although it does include 2 outdoor tables. We sat down and quickly received our drinks which was the perfect way to start off lunch. I ordered the pineapple cilantro margarita, although there was a bit too much cilantro to sift through.
Our lunches were delish! My husband and I shared the chicken enchiladas (my favorite — served with real hunks of chicken instead of shredded meat like back home) and the tamales (a bit too dry for our liking). The dishes are served with a side of chunky mango salsa (yum!). We would definitely come back again!

My husband saw queso fondito on the menu as we were walking by so we went right inside. It’s one of his favorite dishes– especially at one of our local restaurants. We sat down and were immediately greeted by a nice waiter whose name is escaping me right now. The chips and salsa were pretty good. We ordered some guacamole which was made table side and a mixed grill and a skirt steak quesadilla. I really liked my mixed grill– great flavor especially the skirt steak. My husband’s steak was a little over cooked/​dry for his liking. Overall things were A OK.

The food was alright, but the service was even worse. It’s not my favorite to give bad reviews but with so many places to eat in the area I would say don’t waste your time.

Great food and excellent cocktails with fresh muddled fruit. Today we just stopped in for the pineapple cilantro margarita and a raspberry mojito as we walked around the quarter. Every time we eat here, food and service are great. The eggplant dish is my favorite.

The food was good but not great. We enjoyed the chips and salsa as well as the cocktails. I had the enchiladas verdes and they were very fresh and tasted great but the chicken was a little dry. The staff accommodated with extra jalapeños and salsa and were very courteous!

Seriously not that great!
I ordered the steak burrito, & my wife got the combo plate, we both felt we were missing something when our plates arrived.
Her quesadillas were flat, with barely anything in them. She did however enjoy her chicken/​cheese enchiladas.
My burrito was however horrible. I’ve seen more steak in a taco-​bell burrito. I feel ripped off. The burrito was mostly filled w/​beans & rice, I’m seriously not happy.
Makes me appreciate the Mexican restaurants back home more.
Well at least the margaritas were good.

We loved this place! Service started out a little shakey but picked up after a bit. There were things on the menu that they were out of but they accommodated us with other items. The food was amazing! I had the fajitas and they were incredible! Our friends had the carne asada and added shrimp. Everything was seasoned to perfection. A little disappointing that they don’t split checks because we had a group of 13. Ambiance is very casual and didn’t love the lighting (too bright). Would definitely go back! Definitely try the mushroom chipotle sauce!

Great food. Came with a big party and they handled us well. Came with a vegan friend and her meal was one of the best.

Recommendations: burritos (filet mignon/​pulled pork)
Quick & friendly service — waitress immediately moved us from the courtyard to indoor seating upon availability.

The service was really slow (took almost 2 hours for lunch) and then they got my order wrong. The food was just ok.
We came as a group from a conference and they wouldn’t let us split up the bill even though we all needed receipts to expense the meal.
Would not recommend this restaurant when there so many better ones around.

By far the best margaritas I had while in NOLA. I love this city, where it’s legal (if not encouraged) to buy a drink in a bar or restaurant and to bring it with you as you stroll around. A local recommended this place for the drinks alone, but I wished that I would have sat in for food– which looked incredible. If you stop in here, make sure to check in on Unilocal,as you’ll get a coupon for the top-​shelf margaritas. Though they are expensive (I think about $ 8.50), it’s definitely worth it to grab one while you’re in the Quarter.

Not my favorite place for Mexican food. Didn’t really like the chips and salsa, didn’t really like the fajitas and I didn’t like that they didn’t tell me about the no free refills after my son orders a few cokes while we watched an NFL game.
The margaritas are really good and the Unilocal check in deal is absolutely worth it. The service was OK, the TV are big and all in all this is a good place to watch NFL.
I hate writing negative reviews and I feel I write more these days then ever but it’s not Unilocal is a new thing. Service us everything and it really makes me angry when small business don’t read and learn from their bad reviews. So sorry for the negative review, like always I think you should try this place yourself but I will not be back anytime soon.

Yum yum yummm… such a great mexican place in the middle of new orleans! Highly recommend. I had the steak fajitas and the spicy margarita and couldn’t have been happier with my selections. Everyone at the table raved about their dinner as well.

The fact that this place has a good rating is disturbing. I was in NOLA for a friend’s birthday, and we came here for dinner the first night as we were all tired from the drive and just stopped into the first place we saw. It was a cold, rainy night — somehow, this place managed to further dampen our spirits.
The service was pretty good in terms of friendliness, however the waitress didn’t warn us about the fact that only two credit cards can be used per table. We had 15 people. We didn’t know this. She didn’t even charge half the orders to one card and the rest to the other; she just split the total cost right down the middle, leaving us a painstaking amount of accounting to do to figure out who owes who.
The food itself f**king sucks. Excuse me for using expletives, but I’d literally rather prefer taco bell above this place. Not only was the food way too overpriced, but it was also just pre made microwaved garbage as far as I could tell. The beans tasted like someone dumped a pound of Morton salt into them. The enchiladas tasted okay, but the cheese inside was colder than my ex girlfriends heart. I don’t know if it’s because we were all from Houston (so were pretty snobby about Mexican food), but everyone at my table collectively agreed to never speak of this horrible place again.
I’ve noticed other Texans leaving reviews here saying that it’s the best Mexican food they’ve had outside of Texas — maybe they’re right. Truth be told, when I’m outside of Texas I usually don’t go for Mexican, but we were desperate on this particular night and just wanted something that we’d probably like. Regardless, the plan backfired and we hated it. Listen to the other Texans if you want, but my advice is to treat this place like the proverbial black cat and never cross its path.
PS, they make decent drinks. Other places make better drinks for cheaper. Don’t go here.

This place is no bueno! Seriously the food here is just not good and the margaritas are even worse — and this place ain’t cheap for what it is!
Just stopped in for lunch and I wish I hadn’t cuz I feel sick to my stomach as I sit here and this write this. My friend and I each got tacos — 1 chicken and 1 beef. They were both sickeningly salty we could not finish them. Zero spices, zero flavor, just salt and grease. And by the way, meat is all you get on the tacos. Everything else is an up charge i.e. Lettuce, tomatoes, poco de gallo etc. So ONE classic taco as you might know one to be could easily cost $ 8-​$ 9 and doesn’t even come with a side rice or beans!
We each ordered a classic margarita which we opted for the upgraded top shelf Patron for $ 13.00. What we got was pure cloying sweet sour mix. Not 1oz of discernible tequila flavor. This crap felt like it burned a hole in our stomach lining. At least if we got a buzz it might have eased the pain of the acid and grease we just consumed but nada!
Atmosphere was cafeteria style, everyone sitting on top of each other with this harsh bright lighting, and wall mirrors to make things appear even worse.
Easily one of the worst meals I’ve ever had in NOLA. Seriously, don’t waste your time here.

Good service. The food was decent but nothing I had wowed me. The ceviche was decent but small for almost $ 14 and my fish taco was bland.
The pineapple mojito was ok, but the pineapple looked like canned pineapple chunks.
The décor and lighting was a bit harsh, so it didn’t feel cozy or a place to linger.
I’ll go back to give it another try, but there’s too many other good Mexican joints for me to recommend going out of your way for El Gato Negro.

Let’s just say delicioso! Omg there is a spicy tequila they make with a Serrano pepper and the pineapple cilantro margaritas are enough to make you melt into bliss! The fajitas were amazing! I really enjoyed this!