Cuerno
Cuerno has been on our list for quite a while. We ended up seeing an early afternoon show, so I was able to book this restaurant for 5 PM for 2 the day of. Cuerno is an authentic Mexican steakhouse known for fire-grilled prime steaks, bold Northern Mexican flavors, and refined dining. Outside of the restaurant, the whole area smells like grill and charcoal. When we entered, we checked in, but we had to stand around for a few minutes.
Ambiance & Service
The ambiance is very lively. It had a bit of that Midtown night atmosphere paired with social outings and date nights. We were seated in the back, and there were several 2-person tables. Each of those tables were friends dining out or couples. The light is fairly dark, with a light focused on the center of the tables.
The service was pretty good as our host was very attentive to what we’re looking for. They were also easy to flag down in case if we needed anything.
When we finished our meal, the whole restaurant was very bustling.
Food
They gave us a small complimentary Frozen Mango Margarita. This was quite good and probably quite dangerous if I had more. You can’t really taste the liquor because the mango was nicely complementary to the tequila.
The complimentary chips came with a variety of salsas, ranging from mild to jalapeno spicy. I thought even the spicy ones were not crazy spicy but still tolerable. The chips were pretty good. My favorite was the the second one from the left. It had some oil and something grinded, but it had a nice smokey taste to it.
The Siduri ($20) was a pinot noir from Willamette Valley, Oregon 2024. This was a medium-light pinot noir with raspberry and cherry flavors and some oak flavors. It was mostly a decent, west coast common pinot noir.
The Guayaba en Llamas ($21) came with Almattan Reposado, sweet vermouth, creme de cacao, and guava. This was pretty smooth, and not super sweet on the palette.
The Tacos de Carnitas ($22) came with 2 pieces with crispy pork belly, pickled onion, squid ink tortilla, and cremoso de aguacate. The carnitas meat was a little chewy, but the flavors were overall pretty good. It is a bit expensive, so the value proposition is questionable albeit better than some of the other taco options.
The Pulpo a las Brasas ($56) came with 5 oz of grilled Mayan octopus, heirloom potatoes, and chipotle salsa. This was surprisingly a lot of octopus. I thought it’d be just 2 legs if that, but it turned out to be a significant chunk of octopus. The meat was very tender in some places but chewy in others. Compared to the Astoria octopus dishes, this one is not as good as those. The sauce they serve has a nice peppery kick to it, and the potatoes soak up the sauce. The issue is that the flavor is just pepper and salt. It could use some type of cream to settle the flavor a bit. The octopus as I mentioned before was cooked slightly uneven, so you will get different texture sensations depending which part you eat.
The Arrachera Norteña ($52) was a Norteño-style outside skirt steak, with chiltepin butter, garlic chips, and avocado salsa. The skirt steak was ordered medium-rare, and it was super tender. To me, this tasted like a skirt steak with some salsa on top.
The Esquittes ($15) came with charcoal-grilled corn, olive oil, lemon, butter, and grana padano. This was nice because you can tell they shaved the corn kernels off the side of the cob. The flavors were really good and balanced. I enjoyed the shaved grana padano cheese on top to give it that nice savory taste to the sweet corn flavors.
The Pastel de Chocolate ($19) was Cousin Nacho’s family recipe, rich chocolate truffle, and a warm touch of cinnamon. This was basically chocolate cake, and fortunately, it was not too decadent and rich. I could’ve used some milk or coffee, and we ended up taking half of this home.
When you pay, they give you some of the pulparindo candy. It’s basically tamarind with chile spices on it, similar to a dried spicy mango that you’d get at Trader Joes.
Overall Impression
Cuerno was surprisingly one of the better Mexican restaurants I’ve been to in NYC. The tacos are probably skippable especially if you are from the west coast, but some of the other plates are pretty good. Price wise, it’s actually decently priced because the portions for each of the courses were quite heavy. If you are someone that enjoys the chips, I think you can ask for more if you want, so you can easily fill on chips before the actual food comes. I would definitely recommend visiting Cuerno if you’re looking for a Mexican cuisine after watching a show.
Yelp & Google Jabs
My boyfriend wanted a date night (as usual–and I can never say no), so we tried Casa Enrique near his job. We didn’t have reservations, so we were seated downstairs, which isn’t as nice as the upstairs area–but it was still fine for a casual night out.
This Elitist somehow thought mistook this restaurant for Casa Enrique in Long Island City. They are actually 2 distinct separate restaurants with no common ownership or chefs.
The Tacos de Branzino was disappointing. A lot of cole slaw and not much branzino.
The branzino tacos looks like Baja style fish tacos. Unfortunately in the east coast, this can be much harder to find than going to the west coast. As a substitute and probably better value, Los Mariscos near Chelsea market can serve really good fish tacos for a cheaper cost.
Revisions
- May 30, 2026 - Initial revision.