Started strong, ended badly.

We went to Alambique as first timers (tourists) based on the strong reviews and proximity to our hotel. The rooftop space and decor are great. They really nailed that.

Their menu is all Spanish, which I can mostly read, but we asked for help, and the staff was very accommodating with recommendations and descriptions. We ordered a type of shrimp cocktail with a large patacones chip, cheese stuffed pork & beef meatballs in pastry, and then we asked for a complimentary third dish that wasn't too big because there were only 2 of us. Our server suggested a mixed cuts of pork dish, which I would describe as a casserole with cheese and cornmeal as its base, but I didn't fully understand this due to language limitations. This is when things started to go wrong.

First came the casserole, which while tasty, was extremely heavy, and I wondered how it was complimentary to the cheese stuffed meatballs that came next. The casserole is a bit of mushy mess texture-wise, and I think the dish should be reworked. I admit personal taste could change your opinion on that, and perhaps it's a twist on a traditional dish I'm not familiar with. The meatball tasted good, but again it was very heavy and cheesy. The pesto style sauce with the meatballs is very tasty. Unfortunately, the meat around the cheesy centre was very pink. I understand it's tough to do a melted cheese stuffed meatball in pastry and get the baking right, but if you're going to put it on a menu with ground pork maybe you should figure out a way to nail it. I ate it anyway because I'm realistic about the risks, but many would not have been ok with it.

Around the time the meatballs arrived the evening dinner rush hit. This is a great place to people watch the "beautiful people" of Medellín. It's also a good place to notice how stratified Colombian society is by skin tone, i.e. most people looked like me, a Canadian right out of a long winter.

The front of house started seating people all over (many shared tables), and individual servers did not appear to be working specific areas. We ordered a water and limonada natural (limeade) to follow our beers, and the water came quickly, but the limonada never did. At this point the place was packed, and servers were running around without any clear system. We were forgotten. 45 minutes passed after our second dish, and the 3rd had not come. That was 25 minutes or so after the drink order that was only half completed.

At this point, I waved over the server who took our food order (he never came back to us, others delivered food and took the drink order) and told him that we were done and didn't need the 3rd dish. He was clearly disappointed and apologized. I appreciated that he had the good sense not to add the standard 10% tip that most restaurants add in Colombia.

This place looks cool and has potential, but I don't see how they have such a high rating when clearly the wheels come off the bus when they're busy. It's normal for restaurants to slow down, but it's not normal to undercook food, or for two different servers to forget a food order and drink order, respectively. The two dishes we did get should not have been recommended as complementary, as they were both mushy, heavy, cheesy plates. I personally think these could be worked on to refine textures and balance. Ultimately, I think this place is highly rated because it's "in". It's in Poblado, which is a cool neighbourhood. It looks cool. And cool, wealthy young Paisas come here. It's a place to see and be seen. I don't think it's a particularly serious restaurant or a serious kitchen.