Parrilla Don Pichon — Restaurant in El Calafate

Come for the wine and view but avoid the lamb. Absolute tourist trap.

I don’t even know where to begin. We were seated 5 mins before anyone even acknowledged us again to give us the menu after flagging someone down. The bread was inedible (see video). The lamb for 2 are the scraps you’d feed the dogs as another reviewer said. It should have been a red flag when they didn’t specify what cuts they were as they do in other restaurants. A further look at the menu you’ll see there’s no mention of lamb racks, chops or leg of lamb which makes one think they purchase the leftover cheaper cuts from the butcher…and judging by what was served to us further backs that up. I guess we should have expected it for less than $50,000 for the lamb for 2. Service was friendly enough but we can’t overlook the fact that we asked for chimichurri two times (after the server was the one who asked if we wanted it first) and still we didn’t get by the end of the meal. We tried to flag him down again but it was almost as if he was actively avoiding us at that point. As for the flavour of the food itself…I can’t remember the last time I used table salt for a meal in a restaurant before.

And out of the 4 stalls in the women’s washroom, not one was fully functioning. Either faulty door that didn’t close at all, didn’t flush (2) or simply locked from the inside, so completely unusable.

View was great but don’t be fooled by...

We ordered two filet steaks. One with mushroom sauce and the other one without and medium rare. The steaks arrived and both had sauce so we said that we ordered one without sauce. Few minutes later zhey came back with the same steak without sauce but still a mushroom on it. Instead of medium rare it was well-dobe because apparently they just took away the sauce and put it on the grill again. When we asked the waiter if this is medium rare she said she doesn't know but we ordered medium. We told her we ordered medium rare and she replied that apparently my boyfriend didn't like it and took away the meat. In the end she gave a discount of a few euros on a very expensive steak. If you make these kind of mistakes and put sauce then just prepare a new steak. That's the least one can expect. Don't blame it on the customer and try several times to give them something they didn't order. In case you still do that then at least don't charge them for it. Why give only a discount for something the customer didn't order?

The other steak was good and one waiter also friendly so two stars...

This place has 4.5 stars when I'm writing this review, and it appears on top of all major searches on El Calafate region, maybe this high rating is why they don't give a damn about customers now. We were told there is free drop off at the place where I stay after dinner. Made a request waited 15 mins and went and spoke to guy in the counter again and he said 10 mins, waited 20 more mins there went again he said 5 more mins and waited 15 more mins and there was no one to drop off, when my wife went to check again she was told "this is Patagonia" . We had to wait 50ish mins for the drop off to come. Had they told about long drop waits I would have made my own private arrangements. When I was waiting I see people waiting for seats and no one is there to help them and I could see plenty of open seats then. One more couple came in and waited there to put their name in dinner wait-list no-one helped them and they left after waiting about 15 mins. In my book places that treat customers poorly get 1* and they don't deserve business no matter how...