Earlier this year, my wife Jun and I visited Mexico City primarily for food; it confirmed our view that Mexican cuisine offers so much to be celebrated. After that February trip, we haven’t been to any Mexican restaurant in the States until our visit earlier this month to Chicatana in DC. I was very much looking forward to checking out this restaurant following glowing reviews from the Washington Post restaurant critic Tom Sietsema. Unfortunately, our dinner at Chicatana had a number of misses that were in some cases inexplicable.

Even though we tried a number of insects during our food tour in Mexico City, Jun and I stayed with more traditional dishes at Chicatana, which has a number of insect-based menus such as grasshopper tacos. We of course started our meal with guacamole with chips (oftentimes a reliable indicator of how good a Mexican restaurant is) and it was solid. I also thought the tuna tostada with black sesame seeds salsa and generous amount of greens was not bad but not quite up to the level of the life-changing tostadas we’d eaten in Mexico City. Sope is a traditional Mexican dish with fried masa base; Chicatana’s version came with octopus, refried beans, guajillo chile and smoked paprika. The savory combination was rustic in a good way, but the masa below was surprisingly soggy and didn’t quite work well with the octopus. It was the tacos at the restaurant, however, that really were disappointing. Perhaps we were too spoiled from eating all the amazing al pastor tacos in Mexico but I certainly didn’t expect the pork to be so dried in Chicatana’s version. The lobster taco was not particularly memorable, either, despite the promise of lobster, avocado puree, citrus salsa and habanero that sounds too good to be true. We moved over to the desserts and the dishes we ordered also missed the mark. Jun was puzzled why the restaurant couldn’t come up with churros that were as ethereally delightful as the ones she’d had in Mexico; the overall texture felt too heavy. Same goes for the passionfruit flan which just wasn’t a very good flan with surprisingly thick texture.    

Getting a reservation at Chicatana is not particularly challenging and there are plenty of outdoor seats, too, when the weather is good. Unlike the food, the cocktail list is a strength at the restaurant, with a variety of tequila- and mezcal-based options that would complement the meal quite well. When we were seated at the restaurant, we saw plenty of diners from Mexican background enjoying their weekend right before Cinco de Mayo (always a great sign), hence the misses at the restaurant felt even more surprising. Perhaps the entire kitchen staff was off before the celebrated Mexican holiday? In any event, we really wished Chicatana had offered more memorable food; it probably won’t be our favorite Mexican restaurant in the District anytime soon.

KenScale: 7.25/10 (Jun’s Score: 7.0/10)

Address: 3903 14th Street NW, Washington, DC 20011

Website: https://www.chicatanadc.com/

Reservation via Website