Bistro Le Cousteau - Playas De Rosarito

Good dinner but someone needs to tell their 'chef that picatta is LEMON sauce with capers not BROWN sauce DUH

I’m not a big fan of French restaurants, but this one is really good. You sit down and they bring out this amazing bread that is nice and warm, probably the best in Rosarito. The meals come with a nice fresh and crisp salad that has a dressing that seems to be a combination of green goddess and French. It really tasted good. I had the chicken piccata and it was so flavorful that I ate the whole thing. The risotto that came with it was nice and creamy. My mother had the seafood crepe. It was HUGE. And it was great. Lots of seafood and a nice creamy sauce. They have two parking spots in front and a sign pointing to more around the corner. In downtown Rosarito that makes a difference as to whether or not you go during the tourist season.

Le Cousteau’s days as a good French restaurant are over. At arrival, we decided to chose a bottle of baja wine from the wine menu, but once we ordered it, the waitress said The price on the menu went up and the wine would be 100 pesos more than in the menu this was weird and we are certain is illegal in Mexico to have a price on a menu and charge a different price after, but we just wanted to have a pleasant meal and ordered the wine anyway. After we ordered it, the waitress commented that the higher price was not permanent and the wine might be more expensive when the bill came. I thought: what is this, Wine speculation? At that point we should have cancel the order and left, but we stayed. We noticed the French offerings of the menu are very limited and now there is a weird variety of French-mex fusion, Spanish and Italian. We ordered: Spanish ham appetizer, crepes, cricket tacos (a delicacy from Oaxaca), a pizza, dessert. Most of The food was heavy with bechamel sauce and cheese, it lacked brilliance and freshness and everything was overly salty, except for the tacos, that were quite nice, paired with their toppings (cactus salad, cilantro, etc). The waitress didn’t really pay attention to our table because she was having dinner at one of the restaurant’s tables and only sometimes would glance at us with her mouth full of food. When we ordered the check, Luckily the price of the wine did not go up again, but the rate of exchange dollar to peso was extremely low. This is an awful practice of restaurants in touristy areas in order to overcharge tourists just by rate of exchange. So we decided not to pay in dollars and pay with a credit card, because the bank would respect the current rate of exchange. The waitress took the card and came back saying their machine had to be rebooted. I said “fine. We’ll wait”, then she came back again and said it wouldn’t work. At this point we were fed up. We had such wonderful meals and experiences in restaurants in Tijuana, amazing service, honest, transparent staff, we could not believe this would happen in Rosarito. Philip, the chef and owner used to have great food and staff, but those days are long gone. I’m not sorry to say I don’t need to come back to this restaurant because the food movement in Tijuana and ensenada is amazing and places like le Cousteau can’t compete at all.

Veggie pizza, extra veggies without cheese? No problem! I thought I might destroy the very fabric of la cuisine space-time by making a special request, but they handled it masterfully. I got an off-menu item in due time without it being all weird. And that the pizza was so very yum made my cheap-o self happy to pay the check.

Every time we visit Rosarito we always try to visit this place. It has been in Rosarito for a long time which speaks volumes as many other restaurants have closed. The food is always cooked to perfection and there is a good variation of dishes and drinks on the menu. Staff are friendly, helpful and professional. We are always made to feel very welcome and we always feel that our custom is valued and appreciated. Probably the most important thing to us, is that the good food and good service is consistent especially when we are looking to bring friends for a first visit visit.