Julie Chan
A lovely Argentinian restaurant near the neighbourhood❣️Owner Alex is such a warm person and the food tasted authentic and filling. Would recommend having their Latin breakfast / Empanadas! 😄
Footie Loose
This is one of my favourites in north London. The service is great, the owners are very friendly and accommodating, and the food tastes great. The menu is a mix of South American, Italian and Greek but it works very well. We went when there was a large group of Colombians celebrating a birthday but they fitted us in without fuss and we had a great meal again. If you’re in north London head to El Rincon.
Patrick Zahrl
This is a proper hidden gem. The food is amazing, the owner super friendly and the prices very fair. The place also seems very authentic and you will hear many of the guests speak Spanish.
I strongly recommend trying their fish soup as well as one of their amazing stews or chicken served with rice and plantain.
I used to live close to Holloway Road and now this little restaurant is my main reason for going back in the area 😀
Magdalena a
Amazing food, lovely atmosphere, good price and proffesional service
Anielskieoczko
little gem in this area. beautiful food, fresh ingredients, great prices and decent portions. the staff is just lovely, friendly and super nice. you cannot pass by without trying their homemade empanadas ❤️
Mo
The best restaurant experience I have ever had, we had +30 people booking, and every single meal from starters, to mains, to deserts were absolutely perfect.
The hosts, the atmosphere and the service couldn’t have been any better ! So thank you Jose and the team for hosting us and giving us such a lovely night.
Kwang WY
We chanced upon El Rincon after our trip to Emirates Stadium.
The owner was so friendly and kind and it really made our dining experience even more pleasant.
We had 2 starters and 2 mains and they were absolutely delicious. The ingredients are generous and seafood is really fresh.
Do get the prawn ceviche with the fried bananas. Superb food!
H H
Very welcoming and considerate service! Delicious food! We had the salmon, the summer risotto, and the mackerel. Wonderful neighborhood eatery!
trois
Best Latin American place I tried. Seafood platter is marvelous! Reasonable price and generous portion. Must visit
Barbara Rigby
We had a lovely breakfast here. The breakfast menu was varied, satisfying my husband’s desire for a full English and mine for a lighter and gluten free option (avocado spinach and egg). The service was incredibly friendly and attentive.
Manuel Yunda
El rincon, if I'm not mistaken I think it is the first Ecuadorian restaurant in London and the surprising thing is that it continues to evolve with its new authentic dishes and a variety of tapas, and its decoration is much more contemporary. Now also with a selection of tropical and classic cocktails and a wine list created with a lot of variety. Top service especially with a genuine smile from the owners. Luis Torres and Jose. Jose, Luis's younger brother, worked for many years as general manager at Caprice, a prestigious restaurant from where he brought one of his cooks. I will definitely return for their Dessert.
Maria Calderón
Service is exceptional. The place has that authentic South American feel, that can only be appreciated if you've spent time in south America. We had the Silpancho which takes me back to Bolivia with every bite. Only thing I would change is add Papaya jugo to the menu. Two course special is a bargain
Dorit Braun
I love this place. Great atmosphere, brilliant staff and the food is fab as well! Recommend for casual dining but also for celebrations.
Varsheeka David
The service is really good and ambience is great with a projector setup during match days. Would definitely recommend the veggie curry and rice as well as the shrimp linguine
Brett Duneclift
Brilliant restaurant, amazing food, amazing prices, amazing atmosphere and great staff. Amazing overall.
Would definitely recommend.
Jason Hoiles
I had a Sunday roast, wasn't a proper roast, as had no roast potatoes and the beef was like a cheap steak that had been done on the grill, the pork was nice but very very fatty. All very expensive at £32 a dinner..
Richard Terrio
Small place with wonderful service and delicious food. The sharing platters are very generous for the price.
Collin Fedor
We stopped by after a huge arsenal win and enjoyed risotto, good music, and the friendliest people on earth. The ají was perfectly spicy and washed down by cold beer. Fresh food and they even helped us order a taxi after. Absolutely loved this restaurant.
ACHT
Friendly Latino spot. Always warmly welcomed at this excellent place. Parillada for 2 is a great deal.
Alberto
Decent and plentiful food. Unassuming place in the Holloway Road. We had the ceviche and Bolivian pasty for starters, both very good and filling. The mains consited of sirloin steak with onions/plantain and rice, and marinated deep fried pork ribs with boiled corn. Unfortunately the steak, even though I specifically asked to be medium rare, was way overcooked and could not possible be a sirloin cut. It just tasted like a cheap cut of meat, but the flavours that the sauce brought out were ok. Still, plenty of food on the plate, which I always welcome. The pork ribs were much better than the sirloin steak, even though they had massive amounts of fat and some of the chunks were a bit too dry. Again, plenty of food and good sides. They also had a chap playing guitar and singing, which I dont particularly like, but that's your choice. Not too pricey but not as cheap as it used to be according to some reviews (£18 each with a beer, starter and main). Would come back for the ceviche and the pasty, perhaps the pork ribs, and always with a big apetite as could barely finish our dishes...! Service was correct and friendly (if a bit slow, but I am ok with that).
Minime
Random. Decided to get a bacon roll here before work, good value for a week with the chap very civil, go in today different chap, double the price, thanks for that, adios
Theskinnybib
I was fooled by the promotional signs of £2.99 dinner deals and a milkshake bar that claimed their frozen fruit was fresh on Holloway Road - anybody would. And so I was fooled by the pedestrians who did not look the type to care much about food - many of them headed for fried chicken. So, when my other bib nudged me in the morning for brunch at El Rincon Quiteno, I was far from being convinced anything would turn out to be decent. I gave it a go on the basis that my recent food detour to Holloway Road - Cigansky Ray and Tibilisi - had been satisfying. Zero expectation. Zero appetite.. But, wow!! El Rincon Quiteno is a Bolivian/Ecuadorian deli but they also serve freshly prepared hot dishes. There was a massive display of cooked dishes to be re-heated in the oven and on the walls it was a hall of frames celebrating the man behind El Rincon's success. Low-key ambiance at my time of visit, I must say, and marked only by a few drowsy diners waking up for their cure of caffeine, baked bean
Tracy Knatt
The restaurant (well, it’s pretty much a cafe) is just a few minutes walk from Holloway Road station and when we arrived, the tables outside were already full of regulars who were chatting in Spanish – and I assumed they were Ecuadorians, which I thought was a good sign as to the quality and authenticity of the food.<br/><br/>Eventually we chose our starters: chorizo tortilla, chicken empanada and prawn cocktail. The empanada was tasty but disappointingly small, and only one. The tomato relish which came with it was spicy enough to burn off the roof of our mouths. My tortilla was delicious – a huge wedge of Spanish-style omelette, with slices of spicy chorizo layered through it. But prawn cocktail was the most interesting of the three starters: a huge bowl layered with salad and filled with prawns, fried plantain and fried corn. The dressing was not the mayonnaise base we were used to, and instead the prawns had a citrus and tomato dressing which was reminiscent of ceviche.<br/><br/>For our main course we decided to share a traditional Ecuadorian mixed grill which the waiter had recommended. Well, let me recommend to you that you don’t do the same unless you are starving hungry and craving meat. We each received a whole steak, a quarter of a chicken, a huge pork chop and a chorizo sausage each. Everything we were served was cooked well and was nice enough. However, each of the meats was just simply grilled, and when you have so much meat to eat you really need other flavours to help keep some interest in the food if you are going to be able to make decent inroads in working your way through the plate.<br/><br/>They had run out of puddings on the night we were there, which on reflection was a good thing. Perfect for a man v food challenge. Less perfect for a girl's night out!
AllZomorrow'sParties
Anyone who genuinely loves eating out realises that you can't compare all dining experiences on the same criteria. You go to the Dorchester for decadence, intricacy, silver service and a sense of lots of money well spent; you go to Le Mercury for atmosphere, simple French grub, and a sense of pleasure at getting change from £20. <br/><br/>El Rincon Quiteno is all of the following: authentic, tasty, friendly, unassuming, peculiar, institutional, (quite) cheap, distinctive, homely, addictive, changeable, disorganised. If I got these things in an hour at Nando's, I'd walk out. But it isn't Nando's, it isn't the Dorchester, it isn't even Le Mercury - it's in that category which is so rare you have to seek it out even in the English capital. It's small, independent, homespun, immediate, niche, immigrant cooking.<br/><br/>I used to live on Holloway Road so have to declare a bias toward El Rincon. But it typifies everything that makes that area what it is - there is the colourfully proud assertion of its South American (Ecuadorean) roots across every wall, punctuated only by Arsenal FC. There is a counter serving chicken and beef empanada alongside bacon sarnies. It's the north London immigrant experience writ small in iconography and in food.<br/><br/>Over five years of returning there regularly, with family, with friends, with large groups and occasionally just on my own, the menu has changed only a little. The food is principally Ecuadorean but there are Argentinian (parrillada) and Bolivian (pork fricassee) inclusions too and my better-travelled friends who know South America and South American food have always been charmed by the authenticity. <br/><br/>All the meat dishes are excellent, and tend to be vast, too. The parrillada is quite an undertaking even for two, but it's great quality meat. I've had bream done brilliantly there too, and a stock option which they do well are the varieties of arroz. For me, though, the most outrageous triumph at El Rincon is the array of soups. The fricassee in particular is the single most tasty dish I've ever eaten, and I really mean that. Being a small local restaurant that home-cooks, and with fricassee being a dish that takes a long time to prepare, they don't always have<br/>it available so I implore you: if it's available, do yourself a favour and damned well order it immediately. It consists of a salty, paprika-laden broth with a big lump of pork in there and giant corn. <br/><br/>Some of the waiting staff can barely speak English. Which indicates that a sizeable portion of customers do not either - and what does that tell you? I'd guess that if the Spanish-speaking portion of north London patronise this place, it's the closest thing you'll get to the real thing. Not that everyone wants the real thing, or that the real thing is in and of itself the best way to eat - but for all the bleating about Wahaca's street food credentials, look around for Mexican customers and wonder what puts them off about it. <br/><br/>If you want South American food in London, you tend to get rodizio-style places, expensive steak-houses and little else. So you should celebrate El Rincon for being precisely the triumph that it is - earnest, welcoming, unique and, above all, just very very good food. It will be like no other meal you have this year, and you'll have change from your £20 again.
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