El Capo

We came here on a Saturday night for a birthday celebration. Luckily we booked as the place was really buzzing and had a lovely, trendy atmosphere. We were led downstairs where there was a bar and brightly lit windows giving us a view of the action in the kitchen. I don’t think they needed the TV they had down there though. We were tucked into a cosy booth table in the corner.
Our lovely waitress brought us our amazing cocktails — a few Yaga Yagas which were a bit like Piña Coladas, a Hanky Panky which was refreshing and tangy, and a few Tiger Lilies — very fancy in their martini glasses. The food looked slightly disappointing though — a bit too much like fast food (my friend wants to know why restaurants have started serving all foods in grease proof paper?!) and the burrito looked a bit anorexic — I’ve never seen one that small! I ordered the mango lime and coriander chicken wings all the other reviewers raved about. The sauce tasted great but the chicken itself needed flavouring/​marinating. Luckily, the desert was on its A game. There were far too many churros per portion (not really complaining!) They were delicious and filled with chocolate, served with MORE chocolate. We also got a churros sundae with was also massive but nobody complained either! After finishing the evening off with more cocktails, the girls decided that this place deserves 4 stars! The food was okay but deffo would recommend this as a bar for their cocktails and music!

Even though this has bad reviews I really liked it, I really wanted tacos and the day we went in they had an offer taco Tuesday all tacos £1 great stuff.
The food was really nice would definitely reccomend the tacos they are more of a snack than a meal but they are great for sharing while having a drink. They do have a restaurant down stairs so I would go back and have a meal.
The margaritas are really nice highly reccomend
Overall I really liked the feel of the place it was really relaxed and chilled. The staff were friendly and the food and service good.

This charming South American themed venue has great staff, appropriate music, evocative décor and the foods not bad. The problem is when I went (a works lunchtime Xmas do), it appeared to have all the right ingredients, but unfortunately not in the right order. Flavours and textures seemed authentic enough (a lovely ‘Moronga’ Paraguayan pork stew) but portions seemed small with an inflated seasonal price tag. Service though friendly was chaos. Despite being the only diners there and having sent out orders in the day before, vegans got cheesy burritos, vegetarians got meat tacos and carnivores waited for the mess to be sorted. On a positive note, they did take responsibility gifting a bottle of wine and knocking off 10%. For a small Xmas party they kind of got a way with it, but a significant birthday bash or a romantic meal for two might well have been ruined.

Decided to ignore the low review score and give el capo a try out as we fancied tacos… tuesday is also £1 taco night… Bonus!
It’s pretty cool inside but very similar to most other Nq bars in my opinion.
The house lager, although not the best, was pretty decent.
We ordered a couple of each taco to sample. My favourite was the steak with pickled cactus.
The margaritas are wry good, and for five quid, a bargain in my opinion!
Will definitely be back.

Lovely meal here over the weekend! The place had come recommended as well made Mexican comfort food and that’s exactly how I would describe it. We shared wings to start and the meat just fell off the bone. Then I had the chilli — the beef was so well made and the portion was huge! Very spicy but that’s just how I like it! Lovely beer selection as well. I can’t comment on the churros as much as I’d like too, I was far too full!

Great food, sloppy service! Been here for cocktails and tequila shots before and fell in love with the venue — a very cool NQ bar with a great atmosphere. I was desperate to return for food so came for taco Tuesday the other day. Although I still love El Capo for cocktails and the food was delicious, the service really let it down.
They have a cool basement restaurant downstairs where we were seated — small and cosy with a screen showing films in the background (nice touch) and its own bar too. However, when we asked for another minute to browse the drinks menu it took an age to catch their eye to get them back over. No one seemed to know what the drink/​food deals were, and we really struggled to understand one of the waitresses.
That said, the tacos were amazing! £1 each on Taco Tuesday (including the steak ones) and they were actually really filling. Full of flavour too. Four was just about the right amount — left room for a delicious apple and pastry dessert too!
Washed down with a yummy tequila cocktail and a glass of wine, it was a really enjoyable meal. Just a shame their service was so sloppy

Second time back here in a week! Would highly recommend the tiger lily cocktail and steak tacos
Staff can be a bit slow at times but pleasant and happy to recommend different tequillas! (Ask for the honey one!)

I booked El Capo for my birthday meal at the end of January, we were a table of 10 and when I booked they allowed us to take advantage of the 50% off food offer too.
We arrived in time for Friday night happy hour and had margaritas all round, really good with a nice amount of salt, although they took a while to arrive as the place was so busy. The reason this review is 4 stars and not 5 is because when we came to order our food we were informed that were no tacos left, and that there was only two portions of churros left. No tacos?!? Was quite a disappointment as the soft flour tacos were one of the main draws for me booking this place.
The food was good, very tasty and left me pleasantly full — just not full of tacos sadly. The chocolate sauce with the churros was a dessert in itself, sharing the last two potions between us meant we had one each — better than none, but I’d have liked at least two to myself.
The bill was pretty reasonable with the discount, and we all paid for our drinks separately through the bar rather than on the table’s bill (hence still getting happy hour drinks). Our waiter Max was great fun and really looked after us, looking forward to going on Taco-​Tuesday to (hopefully) get some tacos!

El campo
Situated in the Northern quarters Mexican restaurant. Food was out of this world with home-​made nachos covered in cheese sauce, sour cream and guacamole. I had a burrito with chicken and my partner had enchiladas and reports they were they best he had ever eaten… TIP-​there was 50% off in the month of January (2015)

Brace yourselves… it’s gonna be a bumpy ride!
Rare it is in life that you embark upon a review such as this, about a night that had more horror twists than a Stephen King novel. Now, as a militant humanist and a devout Rumi-​ite, it simply isn’t in my nature to let the insidious remarks that bubble to the surface escape through my narrative. However it is of utmost importance for those in charge at El Capo to listen very carefully to the following constructive feedback.
I won’t go into the specific sequence of events as others have covered them already. But if I didn’t know any better, I would genuinely think that someone at El Capo had a massive chip on their shoulder for our group, or perhaps someone in our group? Did one of us REALLY piss you off guys? Stole a salt shaker? Insulted a waiter? Made fun of the chef with a pompous obnoxious comment? No? Because from the go, it felt like there was an enormous effort put into making every faux pas imaginable. It had to be a wind up surely! I kept scanning the place for hidden cameras.
NO ONE in the history of my dining out experience has EVER waited nearly 3 hours for their food, ever! NO ONE, in the history of my Dining experience has ever been as Saintly/​Patient in waiting nearly three hours for their food. And finally, (if I didn’t find this hilarious I’d find it deeply offensive) NO restaurant manager in the history of my dining experience has had the balls to fail to even acknowledge/​explain/​apologize for the aforementioned cockup. I specifically felt guilty and extremely sorry for Andrew Y in particular who’s main still hadn’t arrived after I received mine (after an hour. Which compared to the others in our group was Usain Bolt time)
I would love to talk about the food, because it wasn’t that bad (It certainly wasn’t two star worthy) My Steak was mostly black as Natalie W mentioned. (Yes, I said well done, but it was done in) But so happy and relieved was I to actually receive my food (after I’d spent about 5 minutes scraping the burnt layer off) I was happy to just get fed. However, so below par was the service to my friends that as a collective experience it was unacceptable.
In fact it is a measure of how far and beyond reality this experience was that previous waiting record for the lack of food arrival before leaving was 50 minutes.
The coupe de grace for the night was the miraculous appearance of the manager when it was time to collect the bill and her discourse upon arrival. Shockingly despite the disastrous night majority of the Unilocalers weren’t actually that angry (Ok maybe some were) but merely hungry and disappointed. It was her reaction that tipped most people over the edge. Everyone makes mistakes and clearly there had been a catalogue of terrors (yes I mean terrors not errors aka terrorizing errors) throughout the night. What you don’t do, is make excuses which not only fail to make sense but place the blame on a customer who’s waited THAT long for their food. Despite the fact that there was a deeply disturbing/​heated exchange between the waiter and Natalie W. I strongly believe it was NOT the waiter nor the Chef that was to blame for the night but whoever was running the show. Because that person didn’t just mistreat 20 random diners. But 20 of the most active food bloggers (from a tightly knit community) from THE biggest and most active restaurant review site in the North of England.
If El Capo was my joint, I’d rebuild the burnt bridges by taking responsibility, biting the bullet and inviting everyone back as a treat. And perhaps as a cherry on top making sure a different waiter and manager took the reigns. Because in all honesty, as my previous review suggests I actually really like this place. So don’t be angry about the one star reviews El Capo ownero. These people mean no malice they merely were forced to take part in a dining horror movie called Nightmare on Tariff Street.

Just had lunch… Same amazing menu… Service great… Food 5*… This is the real experience! Even one of the waitresses made herself known to me and apologized for the previous evening… I guess they are customer focused and the previous night was literally just one of those nights… Lets hope lessons learnt!!!

I love Mexican food and I went to this place with friends for fun and relaxing evening.
Outcome was different after order the food we have been waiting for starter 1h and 40 minutes. I went to manager and I canceled main meal and I left. I’m so disappointment nice place very tasty food but ruined with bad managements and too expensive drinks £4.40 for a pint. One tip if you go ask how long you need to wait for food to don’t loose your time and money for expensive drinks

I really shouldn’t have gotten out of bed for this. I almost don’t want to write this review and relive the experience.
Basically, the restaurant could not cope with our group of 20 at all. Which was strange, seeing as they’d had the booking for weeks (I believe it had increased from 12 — 20 five days beforehand, but that is still plenty of warning).
I can’t remember exactly when starters came out, but it was definitely well over an hour after ordering and things came in fits and drabs, most notably the sauces for the nachos, thereby rendering the nachos (which also featured burnt chips) pretty unappealing. Luckily I wasn’t starving so I was still quite relaxed at this time but other people were quite upset and it was beginning to dominate the talk at the table and ruin people’s enjoyment of the evening.
The wings were great — the garlicky ones are delicious but the lime are particularly good. Had it not been for what happened later I would definitely return for these.
What happened later was that lots of people’s main courses never arrived. In the case of I think three people this was because they actually eventually just cancelled because they couldn’t stay out any later because of work the next day (context being their arrival at 7pm, and this being well after 9pm — and now they are leaving hungry). So the group basically started to fall apart as they left and others finished their meals (some with only partial food delivery e.g. sides missing, the wrong number of tacos) and left before the rest of us had received anything. Some of the food received was also sub-​par — the refried beans looked awful and apparently tasted awful too. The outside of part of Rana’s steak was black. The fries however tasted good.
I hung on till about 10.10pm, by which time Andy and I still hadn’t received our main dishes. Nothing had been said to me about the delay or when I might expect the food. No one at our end of the table had been offered a drink, explanation or apology. No one had given us an ETA for the food.
I went over to the manager who was chatting to someone at the other end of the table (odd considering there was obviously work to be done) who claimed that we shouldn’t be surprised this happened because she warned of the long wait when we increased our table booking. I said I still hadn’t actually received my food, over two hours later and I had not personally been told anything about the wait the entire evening. I asked her if she was going to apologise — she said sorry but then immediately started justifying it again saying that the restaurant downstairs was fully booked, they have a small kitchen and they had to prioritise the tables downstairs that had the amount of people came they had booked for.
OK so:
(1) Don’t accept a booking if you don’t have capacity
(2) Don’t punish a group for something its individuals had no part in (i.e. increasing the booking five days before, which in any case is perfectly reasonable AND TO WHICH YOU AGREED) by deliberately de-​prioritising their food order over others who arrived later (we witnessed the table next to us ordering, eating and leaving)
(3) Don’t make up some crap about your kitchen being small. You know who has a small kitchen? TACO TRUCK. It is LITERALLY A TRUCK. Yet taco truck could have made me 1000 tacos/​burritos/​quesadillas in the time it took you (a) not to prepare anything (b) not to have the basic courtesy, service skills and decency to come over and explain what was going on.
(4) Don’t be so incredibly bad at your job, and personally lacking any empathy or manners to boot.
When I went back over to my seat, the waiter that had been in charge of our table (s) — which I would think was a little much, accosted me saying that I arrived late (which is true, but again this was 2 hours and 20 minutes after I had ordered, I ordered probably only 20 minutes after the others and Andy who ordered with everyone else was still waiting, nearly 3 hours later) and everyone else was happy and some other stuff I now can’t remember because thankfully my mind seems to be blocking it out. I told him I didn’t want to speak to him about it (as I’d just made my complaint to the relevant person, his useless manager) but he wouldn’t drop it and just kept going on and on shouting and gesticulating. So I just left at that point. I was extremely upset and shaking at how aggressive and unpleasant this confrontation was. I would now never go back to El Capo simply because I would dread seeing that man again. Later when Rana and I went back to pick up his car which was parked outside I waited at the other end of the street because I didn’t even want to chance bumping into him. Incidentally, I am pretty sure that interaction was witnessed by the manager, who did not come over.
So yeah, after over 550 reviews and only 5 1-​stars unfortunately I regretfully add this to the ditch.

I’ve been wanting to get down to El Capo’s Mexican cantina since the opening. I’m a huge fan of El Capo as a NQ bar, particularly on Fridays, so i’ve always been hoping that their eats would be just as good.
I popped in on one of their ‘Specials’ nights — where they host Taco Tuesday, Wing Wednesday and so on. (which I think is a fantastic concept and definitely works as the place was packed and we did have to book in advance).
Wing Wednesday is so called because it’s 50p a chicken wing — AMAZING!
I couldn’t resist, so 10 chicken wings were ordered between two of us for a starter along with some Nacho’s with spicy chili con carne with all the usual sauces and toppings. The wings were bigger than i expected and incredibly messy (i really did look like i needed a bath afterwards, much to Tim C.‘s amusement) but really really tasty.
As a main course I ordered the Columbian Chicken Enchilada which was very good — the Lometo Completo burger was ordered too and went down a treat.
Overall, my eating experience here was good. The staff are great and the service was fast and they turned around tables like no tomorrow.
I was disappointed to hear that the kitchen closes at 9pm though — a couple came in at 9.05ish and only wanted wings and were turned away. Hopefully they’ll look into opening the kitchen later soon.
There are lots of things on the menu here so i’m sure i’ll be bacl — maybe Taco Tuesday next time.

Bit hit and miss to be honest.
I’ve been to El Capo twice now and enjoyed the first time so much I couldn’t wait to go back. On the first visit I adored the chicken wings (still not as good as Gorilla’s — which are the best chicken wings in Manchester). This time they were average with both the sauces quite bland and the meat not great either.
We had the chocolate chilli nachos as well (oops 3 starters between 2…) and these were good but really stingy with the toppings of sour cream, guac and salsa. The mains were good, we had the lamb shank special and the pulled pork enchilada with the hotter red sauce. Their coconut rice was not as good as last time either, I’d been craving it but this time it was quite dry & not well cooked.
The service was a bit slow despite the place being half full. This second trip has not inspired me to return again which is a shame as I like their concept & menu.

Some friends and I finally got to eat at El Capo’s long awaited basement Mexican restaurant. As they were still finding their culinary feet they had an impressive ’50% off food’ offer so we booked on a Tuesday night. It was obviously rammed in there so we waited for our table with a drink in the bar. It wasn’t long before we were seated, on a somewhat wobbly table, but a few paper napkins sorted that out.
The cellar cantina, which has seating for about 40 people, certainly keeps the theme of the bar above going, with terracotta tiled floors and painted wall art — we especially liked the big TV screen showing Mexican westerns (with the sound muted). The lighting is dimmed as well (hence everyone’s photos are poor quality!).
The menu offers traditional dishes such as nachos and chimichangas served alongside sophisticated tapas dishes — our highlight was the lime chicken wings (praise heaped on Lucas S. for the recommendation). They were moist, meaty and exceptionally delicious and we regretted only ordering one bowlful to share. The nachos were also on the better side of the taste spectrum (having had some truly awful attempts in other Mcr venues) — you can have them with chocolate chilli, pulled pork, cheese… I just love options.
One of the group ordered pan seared cow’s heart ‘Mi Corazon’ — though our immediate British retort would be to gasp in horror at the very thought, it was actually very tender and nothing like the ‘Daenerys Targaryen eats a stallion’s heart’ scene I was thinking it would be. Be daring and try it.
For mains, we all ordered different dishes, pulled pork enchiladas, ‘Frying Nemo’ and the El Camino (which resembled a loosely packed burrito but with a steak inside). The consensus was that the fish dish was the least favourite of the three — somewhat lacking in flavour, we could have been eating it in any restaurant. The enchiladas were generously sized and the medium-​rare steak in the El Camino was superb with the coconut rice and chorizo. The latter two dishes came with separate servings of sauce, which after tasting, near-​on blew my head off. They were actually hotter than the bottle of hot sauce on the table. A milder sauce to add to my meal would have sealed the excellence, but that was my only minor quibble.
Obviously we had to have desserts of chocolate rice pudding ‘Manila Galleon’ and ice creams with tequila sorbet ‘Helado’ served in small skulls. The sorbet was super good, even enjoyed by a friend who dislikes tequila.
We’d definitely return here to eat, it was one of the most enjoyable meals we’ve had for a while. A few tweaks here and there to the menu and this place will rack up the five star reviews.

I visited El Capo on a quiet Saturday afternoon, so whilst i’m sure I didn’t get to see it in all its atmospheric glory I did get to have a proper look at the place.
The décor has a nice feel about it, brick walls, wooden tables and exposed pipe work with the occasional Mexican style mural painted straight onto the wall. But its the bar that i could spend hours looking at. twinkly lights and bottles and bottles of spirits mixed in with a variety of ornaments, artworks and other bits and bobs including some amazing painted milk cartons. Yes i did just say that (spot them on the pictures)
There was an extensive drink menu to choose from for both beer and wine so both of us were pretty pleased. And prices are fairly standard for city centre.
Staff were friendly and so were the doorman.
Newly opened and in good company with the bars surrounding it. El Capo is surely on to a winner. With Kosmonaut and the whiskey jar as neighbours El Capo already has a ready made crowd in place.
Good Luck El Capo. I look forward to Phase 2… The Food (coming August 20^th ish!!!)

I’d never been down Tariff St and didn’t know there were bars here. We popped into El Capo for a night cap.
The place looks really funky with it’s décor. The barman let us take pictures and showed us the totem faces made out of plastic milk bottles.
We went on a Monday night and it wasn’t very busy being quite late as well. The drinks weren’t too expensive and the music set to low so we could hear ourselves speak. As the bar was quiet, people who came in tended to congregate around the bar area. A number of groups turned up so it was noisy for a while, a quick drink and they went onto another bar and another lot of ‘cool’ folk turn up and then leave again.
A cool, friendly bar, would like to see it filled with people sitting down unless this is only a transient bar. Would definitely go again as it has a good vibe.

So I was on my way to meet Emily C who’d made the trip all the way over from Dublin to Manchester for the first time and I was wracking my brains of where to go for a couple of drinks before dinner. You see it’s not through lack of choice but more like too much choice — and this is a good thing!
Walking up the ever emerging Tariff Street, it was going to be potentially Kosmonaut when I thought let’s try somewhere fairly new. To be honest nothing screams ‘welcome to Manchester’ like going to a Mexican themed bar…
Overall I was really impressed with the décor — all exposed brick like every bar around there but one that’s really made an effort to theme it up. I think I’d been putting off going due to hearing the beer situation was pretty dire and although there’s fairly generic beers on pump, it was nice to see Sierra Nevada and some Mexican ales stocked. I went for the Mexican IPA which was wonderful — really tasty and one I hadn’t tried before.
Cocktails (lots tequila based of course) seemed very popular with everyone and the staff were just the friendliest bunch I’ve seen in a while — a really nice touch!
I’m looking forward to going back to El Capo (especially once their food menu starts in August) and potentially making it my new hangout when wanting to pop in somewhere for a nice beer in nice surroundings — A welcome addition to the NQ

I really, really liked this place. Really.
Very cool décor — using the standardised current aesthetic of bare brickwork, hanging down lightbulbs, graffiti & hand painted murals, and general earthy, but funky interior.
They have a selection of craft beers, tequilas and mescals, and some pretty funky cocktails. I got myself a ‘melancholy holiday’ which was really delicious — I’d recommend trying it on a sunny day when you’re in need of refreshment.
The stars of the show though were the staff. Really sound, really enthusiastic, and totally genuine. Just what you want. Lovely guys that would make me want this as my local!
The only reason it’s not getting five stars is that I’m holding back for the food to arrive. And I’m getting straight on a plane to Manchester when it does. It’s bound to be good, I can feel it in ma bones!