NINA Pasión y Sabores — Restaurant in El Calafate

We had dinner here around a month ago. I have to say, that the food was delicious. If this rating was for just the food, it would be 5/5. What ruined our experience was the service. We ordered drinks, starters and a main course. Our drinks arrived quickly, and after 25 minutes, our main course was served. We hadn’t received our starters yet, so we asked about them, and the waiter said he would bring them through. We actually didn’t see this waiter again, and no starters appeared. So a further 15 minutes on, we were now finishing our main courses- still no starters. My husband also wanted another drink, so we called another waiter, asked about the starters and also ordered a a drink. Well, the starters came quite promptly on this occasion, although we had now finished our main course. The drink however, we saw it being made, it sat on the counter for around 5-10 minutes being brought to our table. We did not complain about the service on the evening because the waiters simply looked overworked. There were far too many people in the restaurant for the number of staff. Also all the staff were polite and apologetic. However the delay in food times really impacted our enjoyment...

Comically bad food and service

I had arrived at 19:00 wanting to treat myself to a big meal after having hiked 25 km that day. I was seated and my order was taken immediately, but I waited 45 minutes for food. I tried to flag down waiters to ask where my food was and they would make eye contact and ignore me.

After 45 minutes, I went to the bar to ask where my food was and a male waiter told me it was coming soon, and then he brought me someone else’s meal! He left my table before I could tell him it was the wrong meal, so I had to get up again and bus the food myself.

He apologized and told me my actual food would come soon, and after over an hour, I still did not have it. I told him I was going to leave but he kept asking me to wait a few minutes, and at 20:30, an hour and a half later, I finally had my food.

The flavor was absolutely so bland and not at all worth the money. They do not season the food here and it’s clear that even after an hour and a half, my meal was a rushed job. It was the most undercooked and underseasoned beef I ever had.

For some reason, I paid a lot of money to be ignored, wait around for two hours, and eat bad food....

The restaurant is definitely pretty, but as soon as we walked in, we were hit by a strong smell of gas – so intense that I actually asked my companion if the place was about to blow up. The amuse-bouche was just a piece of store-bought bread with some kind of mayo on it – not a great start.

We ordered the beef ribs, sirloin steak, and Caesar salad. The meat was consistently disappointing: overly fatty, full of sinew, and tough to chew. The side dishes were a disaster as well – I have no idea how you manage to make stuffed potatoes so hard that half of them were basically inedible.

But the Caesar salad was the worst part: absolutely terrible for the price. The dressing tasted like cheap store-bought sauce – it just wasn’t good.

Bottom line: the worst food we had in our entire three-week trip – and also one of the most expensive meals. Definitely not...