Topolobampo Review

I will start of by saying 1) I love Frontera and eat the sandwiches all the time when leaving from O'Hare 2) I am not averse to personally dropping $700 on a meal at multi-star Michelin restaurants such as Alinea (worth every cent by the way) or in Europe and 3) I travel all around the world for work eating at great restaurants all the time. Also, my rating is based on the fact that you'll likely spend $300-$500 here so the bar is quite high - if this was just your normal priced high end Mexican restaurant of course the food is good - but its not! Its Bayless and its $500 and its a multi-month waitlist! However, after waiting a long time to get a reservation and finally landing a 5:45pm one during a weekday, my wife and I went to Topo earlier this week. Frankly, majorly disappointing on many fronts. First, the décor leaves a lot to be desired - not well put together, small area, and very loud music - and not in a trendy, classy, or any other good way. It sounded like they were blaring a livestream of Gypsy Kings on Pandora. Next, while the cocktails were good, the wine was majorly overpriced, especialy the wine pairings. $30 a glass for a Albarino? I mean come on, there isn't even a bottle that costs that much in Spain for God's sake. And the wine pairings, $90? Really? Way high for the quality of the wines on the list. Furthermore, I had to wait so long for the wine pairing to be served I just went by the glass instead of waiting for a slow trickle of overpriced taster samples from their sommelier. Next, the service was not good - tons of people milling around in a cramped space. The kitchen was packed and almost on top of the seating area, and another prep station was in middle of the small dining area - you'd think with the proximity and amount of servers they would be all over it - they weren't. Again, comparing to other top-tier restaurants, not even close. At Alinea, the minute you're done the plate is gone. The minute your wine is done, another glass. Here, y