BEST OF MERIDA 2025 - Botanas Botanas are a special treat, basically free food you get with drinks. Lucero doesnt call it in here, they serve a great variety of excellent options (mmm the gizzard is absurd). It varies throughout the day the service levels and botana availability; but show up around 7-8pm for a safe bet on a good experience with solid service, availabilty, and a good place to hang. See prior reviews for more details and happy eating from John Seeto! read more

What a great surprise this was! I had no idea what we walked into, I thought we were just going to grab drinks at this ultra chic looking bar. We ordered beers, we received those, and literally 2 min later a waitress came out with all these mini tapas and I was in shock. I had mentioned that we didn't order them and she said they came with the beer, and oh my, it's genius! we literally didn't feel the need to leave the bar and ordered more than we should've. Some of the tapas were great, some were decent, nothing terrible but what a deal and concept. read more

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I loved Lucero de Alba. I stopped here for dinner after visiting the local area and Clinic. This restaurant came highly recommended from someone that had just moved to the area. They were 100% correct. This was a wonderful place. They had great food. Great drinks wonderful customer service and the outside bar with music was absolutely the best. This makes me so excited because this is the area that I was considering buying an apartment and now knowing that there's restaurants and wonderful places like this nearby, this is a must eat and see restaurant and neighborhood. Also, there was great service from my waiter Chulim. I can definitely say that the service and the kindness of the people in Merida at the restaurants that I have visited are significantly better than in the USA. The hostesses that sat people at the entrance were so kind and friendly as well. read more

El Lucero del Alba - Wonderful tapas!!! - Tapas/Small Plates Near Me - Mérida, YUC

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This is actually more of a bar than a restaurant. Music it's so loud. It's hard to hear the conversations at the table. When you order drinks they bring you snacks, and lots of them. So when you do order food, you're too full to eat it. read more

El Lucero del Alba - Snacks - Tapas/Small Plates Near Me - Mérida, YUC

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Big place that is crazy busy most of the time with servers darting around the massive restaurant dropping Yucatáns' best Botanas. There's an obvious love and care paid in the kitchen to their art. My favorites were a squash seed butter/puree and the Pavo rellenos tacos. Beers are 70 pesos and it's off Paseo Montejo so it's priced for upscale. read more

Amazing vibes, great live music, great drinks, food is perfect, what's not to love! Service has been amazing English and Spanish speaking. read more

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Amazing service, music and ambience- El Lucero hit all the high notes on our recent visit. We were pleasantly surprised by the quality of the complimentary botanos. The Jamaica mezcalita had the right balance of smoky sweetness and there was a great selection of beer. Prices were very reasonable considering what was offered read more

The ambiance was fabulous. There was live music on the patio and a quieter space indoors. Regardless, the service is excellent and they just kept the food coming. If you go in for drinks, they will bring you tapas but Yucatan specialties. I was in town for one week and went there 3 times. read more

Stumbled upon El Lucero on our first night in Merida..... great atmosphere, great service, and good food..... alot of appetizers on the house so be careful not to order a lot of food unless your hungry ..... great find read more

Wow! What a great find! Last night in Mérida and it totally made our trip. Increíble authentic Yucatan food (the queso relleno is incredible). The prices are super reasonable the service superb and they had an amazing live band. When I come back to Merida I am coming back for sure! read more

El Lucero del Alba - Queso relleno - Tapas/Small Plates Near Me - Mérida, YUC

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Really fun place to have a few drinks, eat free snacks, and listen to some live music

We went to this place on Friday afternoon and as soon as we ordered food , we saw people wait out side to get a table. We ordered panuchos and a shrimp taco with two bottles of beer. They gave us a lot of Botanas! We had to ask them and make sure that we didn't order them. Very friendly staffs. I'm allergic to tamarind and asked them multiple times about tamarind in the foods that we ordered, they made sure that they dont bring us any sauce with tamarind. They had live band playing music as well!! Definitely will visit again when we come back to Merida! Thank you. **Covid: they checked our temperatures, gave us hand sanitizer, staffs were wearing face shields, masks and goggles. Out side seating area, felt comfortable to eat during Covid. read more

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Lugar muy bonito buen ambiente buenísimo servicio. gracias a Benjamín y a Didier por el servicio y atención :)

This was one of my favorite bars in Merida - Cheap drinks and the best botanas - tacos, small enchiladas and tamales along with a room full of super friendly locals read more

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Estuve en el lucero del Alba del centro el pasado martes 22 de dic 2021 como a las 5pm y la comida y el servicio estuvieron perfectos pero cuando sali el señor del estacionamiento (que está cruzando la calle) me quiso cobrar $50 pesos y yo le dije que era gratis para clientes y el me contestó que la próxima vez que regresará si alguien rayaba mi carro hiba ser mi responsabilidad muy grosero y con mala actitud y si la próxima vez que regrese y el este me voy a eladio's así que ellos sabrán si conservan a un cliente o un mal elemento del negocio read more

I gotta admit I had low expectations for this place. When we arrived we actually had to clean our table off ourselves... It was filthy. The food menu is rather small. I ordered a Chaya and pineapple juice which wasn't the best tasting juice (I feel the pineapple juice wasn't fresh but canned). I was surprised to see the free items that were brought out to the table. The little fried corn meal patties were super tasty. My boyfriend ordered the lime soup and I ordered the mixed seafood ceviche. The soup was delicious and the ceviche... WOW. First- the portion was HUGE and secondly it tasted SO GOOD, plus they didn't skimp on the seafood, there was plenty there. I was really delightfully impressed by the ceviche. read more

This isn't a cantina but they serve SO MANY BOTANAS! I'm a huge fan of their tamarind daiquiri. It's a bit on the weak side, but they totally made up for it with their endless botanas which are similar to free appetizers. They certainly kept it coming! We had a bunch of fried items but my favorite was the bean tamales. YUM. My tamarind drink was approximately $50 something pesos which is incredibly affordable since I also got dinner included in the form of botanas :) Love this place. reminds me of an On The Border restaurant with the decor. read more

This restaurant was just a couple of blocks from the house we rented in Merida, so it was the first place we went for dinner. They specialize in seafood, and in particular, shrimp. Since we were not sure what to get, we decided to just try all the tacos they offer: 5 different flavors of shrimp, and one of fish. The fish and one of the shrimp was simply breaded, one was with garlic, one spicy (Diablo), one with vinegar (tasted like ceviche), and one with caramelized onions. All were delicious (I think the Diablo and caramelized onion varieties where my favorites. They also had a bunch of tether stuff on offer, but we only tried the tacos. There beer was a different story. We started out with whatever they had on tap (they offer either light or dark options only, we got the light). Not sure if we just got a bad batch, or if it always like this, but the beer was definitely off, and we did not have much before ordering Pacificos instead. On the up side, they were very nice, and did not charge us for the first beers. All told, with 12 tacos, two beers, and four bottles of water, the total bill was only about $25 USD. I would definitely recommend this place, just order your beer in bottles. read more