Nektar

4 Stars = Exceeded my expectations
Nektar was visited kind of on a whim. We were staying across the street at the Mayan Palace and we had made it a point to eat out and away from the hotel in either Playa or Cancun during our vacation as my expectation of «hotel food» is usually not that good.
What a great surprise to find this place. It is a beautiful restaurant and the food is equally delicious. The staff was very helpful and friendly and they will make a good place to visit after dinner for drinking and dancing. The drink menu is probably the most unique thing about this place. The cocktails are quite creative. I had a bourbon pear cocktail that was tasty and beautiful to look at. I would probably have preferred something a little more manly but it tasted good in the end.
The prices were on the higher end but what I would expect for this kind of place — definitely not out of line.
I came close to awarding 5 stars but it just isn’t worth dying for and only a handful of places get my five star award. Great effort!

This place had fantastic ambiance and food. It specializes in Yucatecan cuisine, which I wasn’t at all familiar with. Everything we ate was delicious. The totopos (chips) and salsa samplers were tasty and unique. We had the grilled octopus as an appetizer — yummy. I’ve had my fair share of octopus and this was one of the best ever. For our entrée, we shared the shrimp molcajete bowl, which also contained grilled green onions, sausage (I don’t normally eat sausage, but I took a bite. Great flavor. It was drier than most: a good thing), avocadoes, a huge chili (native to the area. Not too hot, but spicy), cheese (made locally) and a sauce that was delicious. The sauce was an enhancement, as the dish was not sauce driven. I had the habanero drink as well (see other reviewers comment and photo of the shrimp «bowl»). It went down very smoothly! Unfortunately, I took a bite of the chili in the drink, which turned out to be a habanero. My mouth was on fire! I’ve had habanero sauce, etc. before, and I eat a lot of chili, but this was crazy hot. The waiter kindly brought me milk to counteract the effects. It took a while, but worked.
If you’re ever in the Riviera Maya area, I highly recommend this place, especially if you’re there to see Joya, which we did, but I’ll review that elsewhere. The atmosphere was lovely. The wait staff very attentive and accommodating. Add this place to your list of things to do when in town. You won’t be disappointed.

We didn’t even go to the Joya show, but decided to have a nice romantic dinner just outside of our hotel. This place had 2 things that you MUST go for 1: the atmosphere. Great view of the cirque du solei building and beautiful ‘interior’ which is open-​air. They also had a trio that night that was playing covers of pop songs and they were pretty amazing. The 2^nd thing to go for? The habanero «margarita». That’s not what it was, but it was similar. A little sweeter and less sour than a margarita, but Out-​freakin-​standing. I’m going to write the place to get he recipe… for real.
The food was not exceptional, but it was still good.
Food: 4
Drinks: 5!
Atmosphere: 10? (Yeah, I can do that)
Service: 4
Price: 4 (still a little pricey, but nothing compared to US prices. Totally worth it)
Not sure if anyone in Cancun/​playa del Carmen will ever even read this as we didn’t find many Unilocal reviews, but if they do, I hope they trust me and give this place a try.