La Cabrera — Restaurant in Autonomous City of Buenos Aires

This experience happened at La Cabrera's corner location (esquina, Cabrera 5099).

I heard so much about the amazing meals and the early dinner special of 40% off the entire menu so I wanted to try it out. It was a complete disaster...

The "rules" of the early dinner special are simple: anything on the menu is 40% off, its starts at 18:30 and you have to be gone by 20:00 when the reservations start showing up... too easy

We got seated at approx 18:45 along with the 4 tables around us. We did not see a waiter for probably 10-15 minutes, but we were ready with our orders to meet the deadline, 2 different steaks, 2 salads, a water, and wine (we were also not given a drink menu). Once someone finally showed up with bread/sauces and said "es una cortucia". She did not take our order though.... the next waiter who showed up 5-10 mins later took our order... our wine didn't show up for probably 15 mins and it was brought by yet another server, but no water was ever brought... at this point we are kinda sweating because it's past 19:00 and we are barely getting wine. Which was excellent btw.

Our salads make it to the table, and the arucala salad was leaves and parmesan cheese powder, no dressing. My cesar salad was not a cesar salad, it was leaves, croutons, and mayonaise sauce of some kind.... our main course finally shows up and its sizzling and looks like its going to live up to the reviews..... finally we are going to start enjoying this experience... my steak was RAW... I literally could not eat it. And no one came to the table for me to mention any of this. Being just upset about this whole experience I asked the couple next to us about their meal and they also said that one of their steaks was raw and inedible.. they gave me their steak to take home FOR MY DOG, so it at least wasn't wasted.

But wait it gets better... so we're done with the meal, ready for the ticket, knocking on 19:50.. no one in sight. My boyfriend stands up to get someone's attention for the bill and it just seemed like we were being completely avoided. Finally, at 20:00 the waiter brings us the bill and they charged us for the water that they never brought us and a $1400ARS per person cubierto (coverage charge). So, at this point we are both just fed up with the horrible service, inedible food, and now we're just being gringo taxed.

My boyfriend brought up the issues and a manager ended up getting involved and responded to our issues with these responses:

"the cubierto is listed on the menu", brings over the menu and it's actually listed as an "entertainment fee"... what?

"you told the waiter the meat was good when he cut it in front of you", no ma'am, no one cut my meal for me. And when we confronted the waiter about this he said "no, I think I cut the meat of the table next to them". We then showed her a picture of the steak and she says "oh, I will talk to the kitchen".

"you are supposed to put the oil and vinegar that is on the table on the arucala salad". we all look at our table where the oil and vinegar are not.

We expressed that we are not trying to get out of paying the bill. We ordered the food, but we are not paying this "entertainment fee" and we are certainly not paying for water I did not receive. We ended up paying just over $40,000ARS or $43 ish USD.

Meanwhile, as this was playing out I was chatting with another group that came out of the restaurant who also mentioned needing to send their meat back because it was undercooked.

I feel that this restaurant is highly taking advantage of its patrons. And considering 2 other groups either didn't eat their meal or sent it back, I don't think this is a rare occurrence.

BE WARNED.. I WILL NOT BE BACK OR EVER RECOMMEND...

Went here for lunch today and arrived 10 minutes before opening and there was already a crowd outside. Was told by the hostess to form a lineup while she took down names. The hostess (black outfit, ponytail, speaks fluent English) blatantly skipped me after establishing eye contact and went on to take down the names of the group behind me. The group behind me was kind enough to remind the hostess she had 'forgotten' to take down my name, however. Ended up waiting over an hour for a table outside (there is absolutely no space for me inside I was told). Interestingly enough, that table outside was always available while I was waiting (understandably they may want to save it for a bigger group).

As I was seated, there was a bald man standing right in front of me texting on his cell phone (black suit). Tried to flag him down to get some service, but was unsuccessful with him ignoring me entirely. Just walked away after he was done fumbling around on his phone to stand with the hostess. Keep in mind I was maybe a metre away.

At the end of the meal, when I asked for the bill, they were kind enough to stamp on the bill "Serivice is not included" (and no it was not a typo on my part), to remind me to tip. I couldn't help but laugh. It's funny for them to expect a tip from me after the way I had been treated. I still tipped in cash. One of the servers here was very professional and nice enough to stop by to ask if everything was ok.

Now I was in casual clothes, but I did not get the feeling that one needed to dress up for this place. Many of the male diners were also dressed similarly casually, some were even wearing gym shorts. And the bald man I attempted to get service from (manager?) was wearing what appears to be a cheap polyester black suit with wrinkles and sleeves that were a tad too long (not trying to be the fashion police but rather illustrating a point).

I understand I had no reservation and just walked in, and it is a very popular restaurant. Perhaps I'm being a little too fussy. But it was overall a poor experience for me. I suspect it's my lack of Spanish language skills, and hope it was just that and had nothing to do with my background.

I'd give zero stars if I could. But one star overall for the food. It was pretty good, but good steaks are readily available here. No need to wait...

TLDR: If you want to spend your precious holiday waiting in line and never getting a table, come here.

It’s harder to get a reservation here than at Don Julio. We reached out via WhatsApp to ask about cancellations or available reservations and were told to arrive at 8:15 to put our name on the waitlist. We got there at 8 PM, and they informed us it would be a 30–40 minute wait. Since we had friends in town and wanted to grab a drink with them, we asked if we could come back at 11. They said no, insisting we would “definitely” get a table before 9.

So, we waited. And waited. And waited—until 10:20 PM, when I became frustrated seeing others, who had arrived later than us, being seated. I asked how many parties were still ahead of us, and there were seven! At that point, I confronted the hostess, pointing out that if I had been allowed to come back at 11, I could have avoided this long and pointless wait. She then claimed 9 PM was just an estimate and said we could have come back at 11 since there’s usually no wait by then.

I reminded her that she was the one who told us we would “definitely” get a table before 9 and explicitly refused to let us return at 11. Instead of acknowledging the mistake, she denied saying that and gaslit me into questioning my memory.

As we were leaving, a party of four approached us after seeing my frustration and shared that they had arrived at 9:30 and were seated immediately. It seems this restaurant prioritizes larger groups over smaller parties like ours.

When we arrived at 8 PM, the restaurant was empty inside and outside, but the sidewalk was packed with people hoping to get on the waitlist. Strangely, they didn’t begin seating people until 8:30–9 PM, even though the restaurant supposedly opens at 6:30 PM. It’s unclear why the waitlist starts at 8:15 when the space is empty during that time.

Adding to the chaos, everyone waiting is crowded onto a narrow sidewalk, and the waitstaff constantly have to navigate through with hot plates, making the experience feel both disorganized and unsafe.

They should implement a waitlist system similar to Don Julio. We arrived for lunch at 10am and they provided us with a time to return (3:45pm). We returned at 3:15pm and they promptly seated us at 3:30 and provided us with a glass of wine...