La Terraza Café Bar Restaurante — Restaurant in Quepos

As another reviewer mentioned, the service during our visit was eventually friendly. We arrived at 2pm on a Monday after leaving the beach. I insisted on walking up and up and up because I want to go to one of the places with a nice view that we had seen on the bus ride down. Raphael’s opens at 2, but were not ready. No big deal, they indicated that we could still have a seat. Cool. Here’s where it gets weird. Another group, 4 (mostly older?) people with good spanish sit at the next table just a few minutes after us. I imagine we’ll all be waiting until the staff is ready. Nope. They have water and menus, followed quickly by their drink order. I watch with amused, mild disbelief as our future waiter (Paulo, I think) scurries around with, I am sure, just one more necessary thing to do before coming to see us. This goes on for several minutes. Every time he takes a stack of menus in hand, I’m sure we are next. We are not. He shuffled stuff from here to there until he was good and ready to swing by our table with a surly and reluctant air. We were not allowed to order just a plain glass of water, but had to order bottles. Fine. Possibly they are tired of sandy tourists? Instead of my usual wine or beer, I opted for one of those foo foo tourist drinks. A Chocolate Monkey, I think. It was good, and arrived around the time our neighbours at the other table were having their food orders arrive. I can’t, for the life of me, remember what food I got, but I loved it. I think it was a Seared Tuna salad, and I remember calling it amazing. Over time, the waiter chilled out, became even kind of funny, and you could see that he’s probably a great guy in the right situation. I’d go back because the view is so nice, and service might be...

Food and service were so good we came here two nights in a row. Don’t miss the sunset on their beautiful patio - made our last night in CR very special. We thoroughly enjoyed the Tomahawk steak for 2 (fed 3 of us), and my picky eater had the pasta bolognese twice (you can taste nicely taste the red wine and see the fresh cherry tomatoes). The side vegetables tasted amazing - garlicky and buttery and not overdone. The patacones (came with beans and melted cheese, pico de gallo, and a tasty citrusy guac) were made from fresh plantains vs other restaurants as excitedly described by our server David - and a local dish definitely worth trying. They were best immediately consumed - hot and crispy on the outside while soft on the inside. The tuna fillet was nicely crusted with sesame seeds and came with a dreamy buttery sauce. The whole fried snapper wasn’t our favourite but glad we tried it (the meat inside ended up being dry and under seasoned) although the skin and crust were nicely seasoned and crispy. Fruit smoothies were excellent - loved the fresh mango and pineapple. Harley was as per other reviews an excellent server - also generously shared his coconut leaf craft making talents. Kids were thrilled with his grasshopper. Our best (and reasonably priced) meals...

The views are quite astonishing, that alone is a reason to come. If you’re looking for a place to have a few drinks and watch the sunset, I’d highly recommend.

If you’re looking for a tasty dinner, and good service, I may look elsewhere. I originally ordered the whole snapper but 10 mins later the waiter came back and told me they were out of it, so I ordered the mahi mahi and shrimp dinner. The fish was cooked well but the sauce fell extremely flat, it tasted like garlic, oil, and cream but had no depth of flavor. The accompanied vegetables were a tad undercooked, including the potato it’s served with. For the price, I expected much better! The fish ceviche was OK, nothing to write home about but I enjoyed the platacones they served hot, and mixed with some hot salsa, the ceviche was good.

Now the service left much to be desired. I didn’t expect them waiting on us hand and foot as it was busy but I had to quickly catch someone’s attention to ask for something (drinks, limes, etc) and then 20-30 mins later remind them once I noticed the item requested hadn’t arrived.

Other tables seemed to get preferential treatment, I won’t go too deep there but you can use your imagination. Overall, I wouldn’t come back nor...