Review: Hyatt Ziva Los Cabos Restaurants And Bars

My girlfriend and I stayed there shortly after I got my Hyatt Diamond status match late last year, and we used my Hyatt free nights from my credit card. I must say, they treated us exceptionally well as Diamond members. Having only really held Marriott status before this, I was rather impressed when the property manager personally greeted us when we checked in.

That said, my girlfriend and I were both *terribly* underwhelmed by the food. Now, we're definitely a bit of food snobs, and this was our first venture to an all-inclusive property. But, every restaurant was rather underwhelming. The French restaurant was ok, the Spanish restaurant was pretty meh, and the Italian restaurant was embarrassingly inauthentic - a step below Olive Garden. The hibachi restaurant was the worst of all. We had an apparently new chef who got egg yolks in the food when breaking the eggs, sweat everywhere, and overcooked the food to the point of being inedible. We shared the hibachi table with a Japanese couple who, despite being very friendly to the chef, left the restaurant with their plates basically untouched.

The rest of the experience was definitely top notch. The resort was quiet and relaxing, the room was gorgeous, and the staff exceptionally friendly and attentive. However, the food was so poor that we won't be returning any time soon.

Thanks!

Would be interested in a little more commentary, especially regarding the food in the French restaurant. How did it compare to a similar restaurant in the US?

Did you eat the salads and/or other raw items?

Did anyone get tourista?

I totally agree with @Aaron about the food quality. We stayed here in mid January of this year. It was our first all-inclusive experience for our family of 7.

Japanese food was the worst we ever had, yes, the worst. They made an exception and allowed us to order sashimi while sitting at the Hibachi table. The sushi rolls were like the refrigerated kinds at your local grocery store. Sashimi was low quality and not fresh. The steak and shrimps were so salty and no flavors.

We had better luck at the Italian restaurant. French restaurant was alright, two in our party couldn't eat the over salted seafood dish they ordered. Breakfast buffet was not worth eating. We headed to the lounge for bagels instead. The Coco Loco was the only place we enjoyed. We're from the Bay Area, we're spoiled by so many good restaurants.

We loved the heated pool with the bar. Great service. Free unlimited alcohol. Unfortunately, because of the awful food quality, we'll not come back unless they change it.

You mention getting premium brands as a Diamond. Can you expand on the types of booze that were considered standard and premium? Absolut, Jim Beam, etc.?

I agree with others... French is probably the best a la carte restaurant there. Asian was the worst. Sad that Coco Loco is the best restaurant even though they only open for lunch/very early dinner. Good shrimp tacos though!

The true premium liquor is at the Club Lounge. Great selection. Very quiet too.

There is no doubt the food could be hit or miss. But we could typically find something we liked on the menu. We'd over order some times if we weren't sure what we'd like best. I'd say the Spanish restaurant was our most disappointing experience. French was OK (I liked my dish and my wife didn't like hers).

We liked the Italian restaurant but that varied from dish to dish. For example, I didn't like the pizza and my wife didn't like the pappardelle alfredo. But, I really liked the lamb cannelloni. And I'll second that Coco Loco was a great place to grab lunch.

For the teppanyaki dinner, our food was good but the "show" aspect wasn't the most refined we've seen. The real problem there was the portions. I think our family of four would have been fine with just my portion.

Sounds like I missed out on the best liquor by skipping the premium lounge. But, I was fine with the Absolut, Bacardi, Jack Daniels, etc at the swim-up bar. But, be sure to ask for the brand by name or they'll give you the well drinks, even if you have the premium wrist band.

This is a super useful series of posts Mike! I have lowbrow food tastes so I'm loving the option to watch football with unlimited food and drink while my family hangs out at the pool nearby.

I'd echo wanting to know the same things beachfan and LS ask. I'd also be grateful if you could break up the photos by meal, since for some of a restaurants I think I'm seeing breakfast + lunch or lunch + dinner selections but am not sure.

Also, do they allow any customization of options? If one wanted soup AND salad at the hibachi tables or two appetizers in lieu of an entree would that be permitted?

Thanks for all the pics, but this review was underwhelming. Can you provide more detail besides the pictures as to what you liked, what you didn't like, and why? We have been to this Hyatt and were able to go to all the restaurants except the Italian one due to weather. I'm hoping you can provide some insight as to the dishes you enjoyed and which were not great. We definitely thought all the food was just 'ok' with Coco Loco being the best by far. Also, I agree with you on the cold kids pool. I have written the hotel and asked them to please heat the kids pool. I suggest you do the same. Maybe if we get enough pressure, they will make the change.

First off, I loved our stay at Hyatt Ziva Los Cabos. That being said, the food was underwhelming. There were some hits, but really overshadowed by all the misses. The steak at La Hacienda was shockingly delicious and we liked Coco Loco very much, but everything else was below expectations. But, all the restaurants and bars were gorgeous so it helped to take away the fact that you were eating mostly crappy food.

I am a wine drinker and I see the wine list with prices. But what were the free options for wine? Thank you!

I agree with other commenters. We stayed at the property in October 2015, and outside of the breakfast buffet which I thought was fantastic and Coco Loco which was consistently delicious, all other restaurants were mediocre at best. In all, the food was very, very underwhelming. The menus lead one to believe the food is fantastic, but the execution is terrible and virtually every dish we had was bland.

@Jenelle - They have their own house wine. Anything else has to be paid for.

@Janelle - Supposedly, as Diamond, we're given upgraded wine, above the house wine. I googled the bottles and they were about $10 online. They were drink able, but we didn't expect much at that price point.

They gave us sparkling wine as welcome gift and they were about $4 online.

Another question about the winelist. Why are they not giving any explanations on the different wines? How are you supposed to know which one to choose, I hope you are not supposed to know them all. Here in Belgium there will always be some explanation on how they will taste..

Very much to the American taste.

That said, my girlfriend and I were both *terribly* underwhelmed by the food.

What did you expect given the price point? Cap Jaluca, as an example, is $995/night and a bowl of amazing pasta is $35.

I expected most of meals to be at least enjoyable...

Looks pretty much in line with my other all-inclusive food experience. Meh. I never understand why someone would want to eat French, Spanish, Italian and American food while on vacation in Mexico. I would much rather go to a place that had several types of Mexican restaurants with different Mexican cuisines and levels of formalness. They need to hire Rick Bayless or a copycat ASAP.

I expected most of meals to be at least enjoyable…

That's easily available at any number of all inclusives in the 750-1250/night range and at numerous $500/night resorts where you might spend another $400 on F&B.

@sunrise089 - The pictures here are pretty much broken up by meal. At Hacienda and Zaffiro, I didn't have pictures of our dinners there so you're seeing lunch only. Images of the two buffets cover a single meal (La Plaza is breakfast and El Molino is lunch). The other a la carte restaurants are only open for dinner.

As for customizing, you'd be fine with both examples you mentioned. In fact, the servers went out of their way to accommodate most requests. The only thing I can think of where they seemed to enforce any "rules" were:

1. The full sushi menu is only supposed to be available at the sushi bar (although they offered to serve us in the main dining room and @Pegasus was offered sashimi without sitting at the sushi bar).

2. A large party (15-20 people) arrived at the Spanish restaurant and wanted to push a bunch of tables together to sit at once big table. The hostess resisted more than once until the guests started just pushing tables together themselves. I sort of wish that rule had been enforced because they were yelling to each other from opposite ends of a huge table and it was very disruptive to others.

Any food or water related GI issues?

@Beachfan - No issues at all. We always had plenty of bottled water in our room or at the bars/restaurants. And I didn't worry about eating the fresh fruit or vegetables.

Stayed at the property in early Nov 2015 for my 15th wedding anniversary. I have to agree with others that the food was barely buffet quality in the specialty restaurants. Coco Loco had the best food and the Teppan was the worst I ever experienced. If the specialty restaurants were private, stand alone enterprises, they would all be out of business within a month from word of mouth.

We spent our time around the adults only pool since that was the only one heated during our time there.

For comparison, the Iberostar Grand Bavaro Adults Only Resort in Punta Cana was a much better overall experience in terms of dining quality.

Great review!
We will be traveling there this weekend with our 5 & 7 year olds. I don't think my kids will be too excited over the menus. Do they offer kid menus at any of the restaurants? What did your kids like?
Thanks

Our kids really like Mexican food so they were pretty set most of the time. They do have a kids menu with the typical kids items (chicken tenders, cheeseburger, etc). The only issue is it's the same kids menu in all of the restaurants. So, it would probably get old if they order exclusively from the kids menu for any period of time. But, I'd bet the pickiest eaters will still find something beyond the kids menu.

Totally disappointed in the food after reading so many reviews. On the fourth night, my husband developed food poisoning. We ordered room service two consecutive nights due to his illness. The service was fast but the food was cold and horrible. The Japanese restaurant was the worst I've ever had. I'm not a foodie but come on, not one meal was enjoyable. I've been to many all-inclusives, sadly based on food quality alone hyatt ziva was the worst.

We are at this hotel now, and as others have stated the food here is definitely underwhelming. The steak house is at most average, the meat is prepared ahead of time and then finished after you order. Steaks are very thin and way overdone with the salt. The quality is Olive Garden or worse at the steak house.

The Japanese is truly awful, there are now words for it. Aye at the sushi bar and it's just a slice of fish over so so rice, no wasabi or any kind of garnish, miso is not bad that's about it though.

French restaurant was decent, desert though excellent.

Buffet is plentiful, but just ok, definitely not worthy 5 star rating as all the sites make it out to be from the food taste perspective.

I have low expectation from the rest of the dining locations.

Thank you for this. We go Away frequently, and I always hope for something like you've written that includes photos of the menus. I like to know in advance, being a vegetarian, what options I will have.

Is the French restaurant adults only? I thought I read that somewhere. I've been at other adult only restaurants and age 12 is allowed. Is that the case here?

My family is looking forward to an upcoming vacation in June 2018. What are the wine and beer options? I realize there is house wine for the AI, but what is it??? Just wondering if I'll have to upgrade. And what beer, bottled or draft, is served with the AI?

This review was absolutely helpful for an upcoming trip with my family (2&5). It is great to see what foods they will be able to eat. Thanks for such a comprehensive review!

Hi Mike, thank so much for this review! Right now I am at Hyatt Ziva and this review is very usefull.
I am traveling with a 2 year old and a 7 month old and having pictures and menus ready in my phone helps me tremendously to plan for the day.