La Placita Cafe

My friend took me here for dinner and it was a quiet lil place, great food, amazing margarita. Closes on the earlier side, but it’s all good because the food was great. Super friendly service, too.

My wife and I eat lunch there 2 or 3 times a month. Service is always fast and friendly plus the food is always great. Today we enjoyed new seasonal beer called pumpkick by new Belgium. Looking forward to going back really soon.

I have eaten at La Placita for the past 10 years, since I first came to Arizona. Great fish tacos, in fact all the tacos (my favorite) are wonderful, good shrimp dishes, good wine, very friendly and attentive staff. Nice quiet little restaurant, and even the other patrons are friendly. The little enclosed mall has been refurbished and looks beautiful. I love the place and now travel from Sahuarita to have lunch there. Pam T.

If u like shrimp & garlic, it’s the best! Add flour tortillas and guacamole… it doesn’t get much better than that!

My seafood pizza was very good, above average. My wife’s chile releno, however was horrible, so the food is not of uniform quality. Service was good, atmosphere simple and adequate. I’m willing to give them another chance.

La Placita has a great menu. We eat fish but not meant, and enjoyed the shrimp and the scallops, respectively. They were both wonderful. Contrary to another review, the salsa was excellent! Water please! I’ll admit I like a thinner chip, but my girlfriend loved their thicker chips. I’m looking forward to the seafood pizza on my next trip!
Tucked in the rear portion of a rather vacated Palomino Plaza, THEY ARE OPEN!

I was in the area and looking for something amazing for lunch. There are so many choices that I panicked and picked La Placita Café. As it turned out, I chose poorly.
There were a lot of interesting choices on the menu, which was made of paper and wrinkled like drinks have been spilled on it. I thought about ordering the mole, but I had noticed Unilocal reviewers who didn’t like it, and I thought I’d try a less expensive dish to see what kind of flavors the chefs have to show off. I noticed a lunch menu hidden at the bottom of the back of the paper menu, and was delighted to see the Chimichangitas — six mini-​chimis of different meats and flavors.
Chips and salsa appeared right away, and both appeared to be fresh. But the salsa was mild and lacked any distinct aroma or flavor, and the chips were very thick — almost like pita chips instead of tortilla chips. They weren’t very good, and I left them alone.
The Chimichangitas came in a beautiful asterisk-​shaped arrangement on a bed of lettuce, tomatoes, and olives, plus a blob of guacamole in the middle. With my meal, the waitress also brought me a spoon for the salsa dish I already had in front of me.
I tasted the guacamole and it is what earned La Placita Café one of the stars I gave this review — it was pretty good, for restaurant guac. I’m pretty picky on this subject.
The first chimi I cut into was ground beef with some onion. It didn’t have much flavor on its own, and the salsa didn’t help it. The chimi was also noticeably undercooked: it was crispy on the outside, but inside was doughy.
As I ate each of the six chimis, I found a total of five were undercooked — only one chimi wasn’t doughy. Most seemed to be double-​wrapped in the tortilla, which is probably why they don’t cook through. The chicken chimi and the bean chimi were as flavorless as the ground beef. The other three chimis had some flavor of their own, but nothing that explodes in your mouth or merits and stars for flavor. It made me wish the salsa were hotter or had more flavor, since the delivery of the salsa spoon indicated they were relying on their salsa to flavor the dish. But the doughiness of the undercooked chimi wrapper detracted from virtually every bite.
Service is the one thing that was quite good, and merits the second star I gave this review. The waitress was prompt, although only two other tables were occupied in the entire time I was in there, so anything less than quick service would have taken more work. I thought the lunch price ($ 8.50) was reasonable for the amount of food, and I did leave full.
But on the way out, I noticed another customer had two dishes of salsas that I wasn’t even offered: one was a green tomatillo, and the other appeared to be a hotter red salsa than mine (it was a different color, no visible chunks of tomato). Either of these would have been nice with the variety of the Chimichangitas.
Would I come back to La Placita Café? Nope. I would drive a little further east to Paco’s and get a more authentic, more vibrant, and less expensive lunch.

This is a great little Mexican restaurant just south of Ft. Lowell on Swan Rd. that’s been around for a long time– and justifiably so. The food is fantastic. Not gourmet, which I don’t like to begin with– just really good tasting everything. If you don’t usually get soup, you need to try their Albongidas, which is meatballs and vegetables in a clear, tasty broth. I can’t decide if I like it better here or El Sur. Service is usually mediocre, that’s why I withheld a star. The problem isn’t bad servers; it’s that they usually only have one, which is ridiculous. The décor is tasteful and somewhat upscale, but the prices are reasonable. Places like this are unfortunately overlooked sometimes because they’re not flashy or trendy. But, also unfortunately, there are few places that get all of the basics consistently right. If you need gourmet culinary experimentation, overpriced fare, and style over substance, then check out Café Poca Cosa. If you want a quiet, comfortable place with some of the tastiest Mexican food in town then check out La Placita.

A nice surprise. Authentically crafted Mexican recipes from different regions in Mexico. The flavors from fresh ingredients and wonderful attention to quality made our meals memorable. I feel like I reached a new level of appreciation for what good Mexican food can be.

I’m trying chicken mole in several Tucson restaurants. At LaPlacita it was just OK. The chicken was tender but the mole sauce was bland — no zing or kick. Sides were the typical rice n’ beans n’chips.
I’m guessing that the customer base here is the workers at the surrounding stores who come for lunch. It’s probably good for that.

Very good Mexican food with excellent service! Incredibly friendly staff, Try the seafood pizza and their margaritas, pretty much a perfect combo. Fajitas and fish tacos are also some of my favorites. Very quaint location, cozy and quiet. Highly recommended for legitimate not over cheesed Mexican food.

A bit hard to find at first. Quick and friendly service! Great start with chips and salsa, and the house margarita was quite sizable. Went with their lunch Carna Asada beef tacos, and I was not disappointed!

This is a hidden gem. It’s tucked away so it’s a bit hard to find. Service is always prompt and friendly. Margaritas are generous and tasty. The food is the star though — this is not your typical fried and cheese covered Mexican — it is sonora style and the fish dishes are really the stars of the menu. Never had a bad meal here and have been many times.

Great food. Their tacos are excellent and the chile rellenos are good too. The table salsa could be better, but it’s still fresh and tasty.

I have never had a 5-​star experience in Tucson before, but this place delivered it last night. It is somewhat hard to find, tucked in the back of a tiny shopping mall on the east side of Swan, a half block south of Ft. Lowell Rd. The atmosphere is refined and quiet, with just a hint of traditional music in the background. The chips, salsa, margaritas, and food are all just great. My chimichanga was the best ever, and my wife’s shrimp salad was just as good.
I am looking forward to both the leftovers we took home for lunch today and another visit there sometime soon.

I tried La Placita for lunch today and was was satisfied but not wowed. I tried one of their combinations that came with a fish taco, green corn tamale, cheese enchilada and rice & beans. A few of us ordered to-​go and they threw in some chips and salsa too. The chips are awesome as they’re homemade and I love when they do that. The salsa tasted like canned tomatoes. No spice or flavor at all. Then my shrimp taco was drowning in lettuce to make it look huge. I understand how expensive seafood can be in the desert so I don’t expect a pound of it but please don’t try to fool me with iceberg. Finally the tamale and enchilada were really good and my only complaint with them was that they were smothered in cheese. I like cheese but I had to scrape off a lot of it to even taste the tamale — which was delicious on it’s own. I definitely want to go back to try some other dishes and eat at the restaurant and see if it gets any better.

So delicious! The chips and salsa were fantastic. I took my boyfriend from England to this restaurant and he still says it was the best cheese crisp he’s ever had (and he loves cheese crisp!) The service was excellent too. This place is a must try if you’re in Tucson and looking for classic Mexican food.

I’m going to have to split this review to concentrate mostly on my most delectable chicken enchiladas with mole sauce. It was so good I can still taste the dark flavorful mole from last night. I’ve been here before for lunch when I was working so this is an updated review because I tried something else on the menu. It is good to see that Plaza Palomino is getting a new look which it desperately needed to keep up with some other small upscale outdoor centers. We walked through the mall and saw mostly empty shops but with a hint that a few are starting to open up. Noticed a lovely French Café which must have recently opened up. Totally, no customers, but the menu looked very nice. They are in the process of making a very large plaza in the center court which I believe would make a great place for the farmer’s market. Getting back to La Placita, hubby ordered the carne seca which is marinated beef. The second part to my review. This dish sounded good, but it was pretty dry. He expected it to be moist, however, that is really how it is supposed to be. I tasted the dish and it lived up to what it is. Next time he would order something he knows about. The help was pleasant and helpful. Seems to be a place where they have lots of followers who come back time and time again. Lots of older couples who know the whole crew. The menu is a touch classier than your typical Mexican Restaurant with some very different entrees. P. S. the chips, to me are so good. Thick, warm, slightly salted. Both the salsa and chips are made fresh here. Being a maven on chips, I was a happy camper.

What a refreshing change to go to a Mexican restaurant that doesn’t look like a tourist shop in Nogales threw up «décor» all over the place. No serapes, or sombreros here. It is understated and elegant without a shade of pretension. And oh my lord the food!!! Hands down the best mole around. I’ve never had a bad meal there and between my family and I, we have eaten the majority of the menu. The only thing that is less than perfect is on occasion they over cook the complimentary tortilla chips. The waitstaff is efficient and pleasant. There is plenty of parking, and the little «mall» it is in is really quite charming.

Chile rellenos in the Tucson Area rated according to the Homeland Security Advisory System with three word descriptors.
La Placita Café: spicy light sauce. Orange
See photos.