El Pope Latin American Cuisine

El Pope is one of those improbable Richmond gems: a true hole-in-the-wall that looks like absolutely nothing fancy inside (the booths feel like they haven't been replaced in at least a decade) but the kitchen turns out food that's flat-out delicious. Start with the sopapillas stuffed with seafood. The crab and shrimp are nicely seared without being overcooked, and they've never had that "held too long" odor you sometimes catch with steam-table seafood. Obviously at $13 per sopapilla the shrimp and crab aren't coming in live, but these cooks know how to work with frozen seafood and bring it back to life; the sauces and salsa are first-rate and do a lot of the heavy lifting. El Pope also specializes in pupusas, and they do them in a bunch of combinations. As of this writing you can get thr

Everything was very tasty, and the Jalepeno Peach Margarita was one of the best margaritas I've had in the area. Reasonably priced as well.

Came here with a group of 6 for lunch, mainly to try the pupusas (currently 3 for $12) because we had heard good things about them. I tried the beef, bean and cheese, the zucchini and cheese, and the shrimp and cheese. I have to go against the general opinion in the reviews and say that honestly, I couldn't taste the difference between the zucchini pupusa and the shrimp pupusa! The cheese has little to no flavor, I could find only hints of shrimp in the shrimp and cheese, and barely tasted any zucchini in the zucchini and cheese. The beef, bean and cheese was bland, but I could recognize that there were both beef and beans in there. Most in the group agreed that the pupusas were not special enough to come back again for. It was not crowded when we were there. In fact, I arrived firs

Cannot recommend El Pope enough. We have eaten here at least ten times by now. The shrimp appetizer is incredible. I have dreams about it! Excellent place to go if you are a large party. The staff is so incredibly kind and fun. Prices are very very fair and although sometimes the food can take a bit, it’s always worth the wait!

first time trying it! very good, pupusas are very flavorful ✨highly recommend