Tezka, Mexico City

Just ate here a few days ago. Am back in the States, hence the review. First off, Tezka is no longer associated with Arzak. The 3 Michelin star chef from Spain. Arzak's sous chef has departed as well. Whats left is a restaurant that does not work and was half empty on a Friday night. (Contrast to Pujols which was packed). Most of the offerings were just bland, except for the passion fruit chocolate desert. Our main consisted of some type of fish in broth. It was disgusting. Both my wife and I are still paying the price days later with pretty severe food poisoning. Stay away.

I made reservations at Tezka for a friday evening at 8.00pm - following a recommendation made in Fodor's. We arrived a few minutes early and could not be seated yet so were ushered to the lower level where there was a bar. Drinks were fine and we only waited for about 15 minutes to be seated. Once seated we were put directly next to a table of about 4-6 people who were all smoking. We asked to be moved to a table away from the smoke - the matre d obliged but didn't seem that thrilled to be making the change. We looked over the menu for at least 20 minutes when finally I pulled the maitre'd over and asked for a bottle of red wine - he was hurried and looked annoyed to be pulled out of his rush to take care of the surrounding tables. Mind you, there were only 4 or 5 other full tables of 2-4 people - the way the host and other waiters were rushing around you would have thought the restaurant was beyond capacity. The maitre d corked the wine and took off, didn't offer to pour our wine or wait for us to smell the cork and none of the waiters came over to pour the wine either. At this point we still had our menus and had yet to have our order taken - it was roughly 9pm. Working in finance in one of the toughest restaurant cities in the world I was shocked to be treated so terribly by a restaurant that has received such great acclaim. The chef made an appearance and made a few pleasantries to everyone. Unfortunately it was his staff that seems to need a major overhaul if they're to maintain their stature as one of the top restaurants in DF. After sitting patiently and quietly for over an hour of receiving no service we finally grew tired and impatient, requested our bill and left - the wine was still not poured and we had to pull one of the waiters away from another table to ask for our bill - and vowed to pass this on to our friends and family who travel frequently to DF. We spoke the language, were friendly to the frequently unfriendly staff and planned to spend a lot of pesos on the meal. We ended up at an Argentinian restaurant up the street and had a great steak, wonderful service and spent half of what Tezka would have cost.

Supervised by Juan Mari Arzak, Chef Bruno Oteiza does an extraordinary job. I would recomend "Menu de degustaci�n" so you will have the whole experience.

Superb food in combinations never seen before !