Restaurant Meripaviljonki — Restaurant in Helsinki sub-region

I visited today with my son and we had great expectations for this restaurant. Our experience started badly when we walked into the barely half full restaurant to be told briskly and very rudely by the waitress that she didn't have a table for us because there were large groups coming in soon. No discussion about it at all, despite the fact we could see the place was half empty and also the terrace. We left, stunned by her attitude, given this is supposed to be a fairly fancy restaurant. My son was so incensed he decided to call and try to make a reservation for later. He managed to talk to someone three times and three times had the phone hung up on him three times in a row mid call. Eventually he went online and made a reservation.. ..for in 5 minutes time, despite being just told there were no tables available. We couldn't help wondering if we were being discriminated against based on our appearance. 5 minutes later we went back in and showed our reservation to the same rude waitress who this time rolled her eyes in exasperation at us and told us there's only room on the terrace...which is where we would have wanted to sit anyway. The terrace is lovely, the drinks were OK and the food was beautiful. We has prawns and octopus for starters and both had the whole grilled sea bass for main course. All was cooked perfectly and came in a reasonable time. At the end of our meal one of the large terrace umbrellas fell suddenly, landing inches from my head and while I realise this was an accident due to the wind it just basically topped off our experience at this place perfectly. We won't be returning. While the food was good, it didn't make up for the terrible...

I could see the reviews are not as stunning as the view this restaurant has, and there were some seat issues. The restaurant has a good view indeed, food was average, the server looked stressful. We booked a table in advance and couldn’t seat at the table where we wanted for some reason although it was empty. We saw the tables next to the window was all empty and asked for one of those and the server raised her voice for that, saying “this is your table.”Pointing the table at the middle of the hall. Honestly, i didn’t know what’s wrong with her and asked again, “But is it possible to seat next to the window? Cus we kind of want to or do you mean we needed to make any special request for taking the seat next to the window?” She kept saying “No. this is your table. And they are for other people.” It wasn’t a service, argument that i didn’t ask for. I tried to understand her English and it wasn’t an easy job. I asked her once more if those tables are for 4 people or somethin and she said “Yes.” So i was forced to agree. No proper explanation. Then we saw 2 men came and took those table in next moment. It was very funny but just not good enough for us to have a glass of wine despite of the perfect location. What an unfortunate for this restaurant’s rent i would say. And for the food, i put some photos FYI. We had a smoke shrimps and calf. I don’t think i would try that great view and shamful service...

We’re very disappointed as we had expected a special evening with great food and service but the contrary happened. Restaurant was busy, but not fully packed, we made a reservation just an hour before our arrival - finding the right person to show us our table was the first challenge. We were seated outside which was very nice but had to wait a few minutes until a friendly different waitress (the only one we met that evening) would bring us a shabby English menu. Either the translation was bad, but when we finally - after waiting some time again - got to order, the served food (arriving half an hour later for a small salad, Parmesan fries, prawns and ceviche) was most disappointing of all. The ceviche was the most tasteless I have ever had, the “smoked” prawns were ice cold and tiny, the fries were just topped with a bit shredded cheese, the salad had no special character either. Unfortunately no waitress or waiter came even near us so we could say anything and when we asked for the bill a non-English speaking waitress just shrugged her shoulders over our barely eaten meal. As we actually had something to celebrate, we spent over 100€ for this disastrous dinner. In addition, the ladies restroom was a disaster, dirty paper towels and toilet paper everywhere, wet floor, smelly, not matching the nice design of the restaurant. Cannot recommend this location and will also not...