Madre

I've ordered delivery from Madre a couple of times and have concluded that the food is good, but probably best enjoyed at the restaurant. The price point and portion size are more in line with a nice sit-down spot than a delivery joint, where you might want some leftovers, and the food gets tepid in the car. I would be interested in going in person, as I love Oaxacan cooking, and everything I've gotten from this place has been great.

My first Madre order was for dinner at home with a friend, and it's one of the few times I've been in charge of such a thing and didn't get quite enough food. We shared the tamal de mole, the cocktelito, and a carnitas taco, and these were all dainty. This is probably not a bad thing, though, when you're doing the L.A. small plates thing at a restaurant. The tamal de mole was lovely, a banana leaf-wrapped tamal with chicken and mole negro. The cocktelito was a nice seafood cocktail of halibut, shrimp, octopus, salsa, avocado, cherry tomato, onions, cilantro, coconut, green apple, and salsa de tortilla quemada. The carnitas taco was a few savory bites of pork, quesillo, pico de gallo, guacamole, cilantro, onions, chile de agua curtido, and salsa Madre on a handmade corn tortilla.

I got the Madre's enchiladas for lunch last week, and this was satisfying, and I appreciated the variety. The enchilada platter came with four small enchiladas: mole negro with chicken picadillo, coloradito with shredded beef, mole rojo with carnitas, and salsa verde with chorizo and cheese. I liked all the flavorful meats and sauces, as well as the soft tortillas.

I don't know that I'll keep Madre in my delivery rotation, but the food is solid and I'll bet the restaurant is a nice place to eat. I'd like to visit one of these days and enjoy some mezcal with my meal.

This place should be great. And it has its moments. But every single time we go, it's like the definition of insanity, expecting things to be different.

We've been in for everything: brunch, Happy Hour, NYE dinner. Every. Single. Time. There's just a complete sense of "Does this place have management?"

No consistency. No attention to service. No proper acknowledgement when things go wrong.

Example one: ordered a happy hour chicken mole enchilada. After taking a bite, the chicken didn't seem like chicken. We ask the bartender. "Oh it's for sure chicken." "Are you positive?" "Yeah." 2 minutes later. "Oh no, the kitchen used pork. Do you want another one?" No, we do not, thank you. Guess what? They still bring out another one. And leave it on the bill! Without any kind of genuine apology or worry that maybe they just served pork to someone who may not eat it?

Example two: We go in for Cadillac margaritas. Madre makes an AMAZING one. New bartender behind the bar but the usual bartender is there as well. We order 2 drinks. After a moment, the new bartender says oh sorry we're out of Grand Marnier. So we have regular margaritas. Then we hear her ask usual bartender about the Grand Mariner. And he goes to get some. And instead of an apology for her lack of follow through, she says "Look we got it for your next round!" Oh, we're not having a next round but thanks!

Example three: We go for brunch. 4 tables active total. We sit outside. It takes 10 minutes to even be greeted. We finally order. Eventually one dish comes out. Two people wait five more minutes while the first person sits with their food. When the other two dishes come out, they bring shrimp tacos instead of fish. The server disappears. Eventually the manager(?) comes out and says sorry, we'll bring you the correct tacos. We ask for salsa to have for when the correct tacos come out. He says okay. The fish tacos finally come. First person has basically finished their meal. We ask for salsa again. No real apology, no offering of anything. Just business as usual.

TLDR: Madre has a severe lack of personality/service/management follow through. What could and should be a five star establishment unfortunately doesn't shine because they truly lack any polish.

Service and decor was great! Our server was really sweet and the room is really nice.

The food unfortunately was just underwhelming.
Everything was flat. Our drinks tasted watered down and all the food needed salt . I live in the area and really wanted it to be good.

Decent spot
Classic case of you gotta at least try it once

We mostly only decided to drop in because we live just down the road I dropped in for brunch with some neighbors. Ironically, none of us had ever been in before.

Overall, enjoyable. The cocktail was perfect to get the palate going. I really liked the elote that the table shared. I could've done an order for myself since it was just two small pieces.

Glad I was finally able to give them a try.

Definitely good cocktail and food was so good. I asked the waiter some help about the menu and he was really nice and helpful. Great ambience. I definitely recommend this place to everybody.

I work in one of the buildings close to this location so I am a frequent customer and I have to say they have GREATLY improved the quality of their service, food and all around guest experience. The servers and bartenders are always welcoming and efficient. For me to write this review just shows how much they have improved. When I first started going there, service was scattered and slow, even when not busy. Lots of mistakes in orders, slow to acknowledge customers, food was inconsistent, menus kept changing formats and offerings, etc. Now I think they've nailed it. Such a vast improvement. The food comes out fresh, fast and is consistently good. And the service is sharper, more detail oriented, and more buttoned up.

I went for lunch on a Thursday. The garage doors were open to the outside on a warm day making the ambiance really lovely.

Service was friendly and attentive.

The El Chapo cocktail was delicious and aesthetically presented!

I absolutely loved the gringa taco. It was kind of like a hand held fajita quesadilla with just the perfect about of crisp.

I also really enjoyed the ceviche. It was fresh and vibrant.

I will 100% be back... it really checked all the boxes.

Stopped by here and had a cold draft Mexican beer. Looked over the menu and saw they had lamb Barbados on weekends but it was sold out at 8 pm on Saturday. I got a plate of taquitos and they were delicious. Side of guac and I was super happy. Can't wait to come back and try the moles and more. Authentic, absolutely.
They have a huge range of mezcal. Tried one called mole mezcal and it had all these amazing flavors. Lots to keep coming back for!

Where do we start. The host/waiter sat us pretty quickly when we arrived for brunch. It's a nice looking restaurant. We got to choose our seats which was nice. The waiter quickly brought us some water and that's where the good service stopped.

Took about 10-15 to take our drink order and appetizer. Another 15-20 min to get our drinks and then to take our order. To make it short... it took almost two hours to get our entrees. To make it worse, 2 of the entrees we ordered were cold. We've had Madre at other locations and the enchiladas are our favorite but they did not taste the same here. We ordered chilaquiles and the description said they were red and came with green sauce.

Madre has so much potential. I am not sure why the OWNER/MANAGER doesn't hire more workers. The two employees that were working seemed to be basically doing everything for way too many tables/people.

But we won't be returning to this location.

Really cute spot! Came to dinner with the family. We got the chips and guac and salsa and ceviche as appetizers. Also shared the carne asada plate. So flavorful and so filling!