Kau Kan - ZIHUATANEJO

I suppose when you get food poisoning, it makes it easy to give a 1/5. I had the tuna steak with creamed spinach. I would avoid this place at all costs. The view of town is excellent, but the sun set behind trees at this time of year (May) and therefore we didn’t (couldn’t) actually see the sunset. The food was average. The wine and beer list was poor. The service was very attentive we were one of 3 tables seated for dinner that night (mid week). As mentioned, the golf cart transport was weird despite being one of 10 people in the restaurant, we had to wait 5 minutes in the heat to be transported, which was, all things considered, a very small inconvenience.

Spectacular View with a nice meal. A little golf cart takes you to the top at the restaurant at the south of Zihuatenejo giving you a fantastic north and ocean facing view of Zihuat and the Pacific. Very picture worthy stuff. Our service was attentive and very efficient. We started with a Caesar salad and the tuna roll appetizers. The Caesar was on point and the tuna roll (stuffed with sea bass and herbs was fantastic! You have to have it. Mains were mahi mahi and the attention grabbing lobster stuffed potato with a basil sauce. Mahi was done nicely . We weren’t fans of the basil sauce on the lobster. Found it fairly bland. Prices on the higher side but not ridiculous at all. However, all in all a very nice dinner. We would go back and frankly have a few of those tuna rolls and salad.

Every thing about this place was magical. We had their special app, abalone and tuna roll. For dinner we shared red snapper, octopus, shrimps and maui-maui. The service was excellent and the view spectacular. Don’t forget to order dessert! We shared Apple strudel, flan and Profiteroles. We will be back!

The new Restaurante KAU KAN is located in Punta Garrobo (formerly over in the Ambar residencies outside of Ixtapa). I did like the former location with the walkway over to the elevator down to the restaurant, really a feature. Last year (Dec 2021) ended up being a better dinner if I had to say. The new location in the Punta Garrobo gated community/residencies (cab to entrance and then a golf cart up to restaurant). The area was a bit unknown to us overall and the website didn 't really help at all unfortunately we were even staying in Cerro del Vigia and didn 't even realize we were staring at it from a distance for 10 days already! It has a decent view over to the Zihuatanejo bay tho, so I assume this is the focal point like many upscale dining options in the area. I was turned off almost immediately as there is 2 sections of the restaurant the one right at the entrance that is the main area with a great view and then a side section closer to the open kitchen area with a lesser view. There was only 1 other table of 2 people when we got there (7pm ish) and we were put way to the side (the main dining area left completely empty) which seems almost like a breakfast/lunch area for a hotel, not a upscale restaurant. The open kitchen is VERY bright, so it seemed very buffet breakfast vibe as we looked over to the dimmed main dining area just sitting there, again, empty. Was it easier for the kitchen and servers, yes, was it nicer for us guests, no. Not a great start. The menu was a one pager and laminated....ummmm, come on. So it had the Spanish on one side and the English on the other, so clearly the 'tourist ' menu at a minimum while the menu options seemed good, the ambiance of breakfast dining and laminated menus set the stage for a very average dinner. Menu was pretty straight forward, I had Mahi Mahi (good) and my wife had the encrusted tuna (so crusted with peppercorns that she said it was hard to eat, bad to average flavour). I can 't even remember my starter but my wife had the portobello mushroom cap which she thought was only ok, if not a bit odd. We decided to not even have dessert or coffee and finished our drinks and left. Prices were decent and if it lived up to expectations I may have said it was a bit of a steal. The staff seemed good if not a bit rushed and put out they had to be at work on such a slow evening. They offered my wife a blanket/shawl as she finished dinner as it was a touch cool, it was a nice touch. To sum up, the location is probably on par with other nicer restaurants (if you get a decent table in the main dining area) but our view was only kind of over to the bay as we were soo far to the side. It seemed like it could be lovely with a bit more attention to the dining experience but this dinner would leave me on the fence of returning or even look to recommend it. A solid 'fine ' but not even close to an Amuleto, Tentaciones or even an El Faro. Too bad Punta Garrobo residencies chose this as one of their restaurant operators and I only hope they get in sync with what I assume would be their high season target market.

This might be our new favorite place for dinner. Food and service perfect and their new location is absolutely beautiful!