Cafe de la Paz

This restaurant is in one of my favorite Berkeley neighborhoods. The cuisine is Latino/tapas, and definitely has the capacity for large parties.

I cannot say enough how horrible our experience was with Cafe de la Paz. (Since gone bankrupt, now running as Viva la Paz) They get one star only because I am not able to give it a negative rating. We contracted with them in late November of last year. 3 weeks later, in mid-December, their website said they were going out of business. How do you not know 3 weeks beforehand you will be going out of business?? Anyway, we didnt know this until the beginning of January because the owner, Russell Bass, didn't have the decency to let us know!! I called January 2nd, to pay more money on our deposit. Only then was I told they were closing, the very next day!! We went down to get our deposit back, since our contract says 100% refund if for any reason they cannot fulfill it. At first he tried to blow us off, and only after my mom got loud in front of his customers did he even talk to us. He gave us a check that bounced! He paid us bit by bit, over a 5 1/2 month period, only paying us off a week before our wedding. It made it very difficult for us to re-book somewhere else. He is now doing catering work under a new name. I would never ever recommend this business.

We had our rehearsal dinner here. Not only was the food great, but they were so nice and accomodating, I really think I could not have done better anywhere else. They even went out of their way to cook something for my MoH when they found out, at the event, that she had a food allergy and could not eat a few items on the buffet.