Da Maria — Restaurant in Landstuhl

Review

A brief review: Good food, very poor service and attitude from Maria, excellent service and attitude from her daughter? (a younger lady who spoke English very well). Will not come back again. Maybe order carry out.

Longer review.

We came to Da Maria on a Sat night with a reservation for 10 booked a week in advance for my wife’s surprise birthday dinner. Our party only ended up being 7 so they took one of the small tables from us (which is fine). I failed to mention that I was going to bring a cake when I made a reservation but brought one in when I arrived. I asked Maria if this was ok and she said something briefly to me in German. I told her that I didn’t understand and she said “my English is not good, no one told me about it” and then walked away. She was clearly bothered by it based on her reaction.

After being seated, no one gave us menus, as we were waiting for a few more people to show up. Eventually we had to get our own menus from the front table. Eventually, our waitress (who we think if Maria’s daughter) who spoke very good English came to take our drink orders and went over the specials. I explain the cake situation and she was very accommodating and offered to put in the refrigerator in the kitchen. When she took the cake back, it was clear that Maria had some words for our waitress, as we saw the discussion 8 meters away behind the bar.

Everyone ordered drinks and food, which came out fairly quick, our waitress check if anyone wanted another beer. Everything progressed smoothly. Our waitress cleared our table when we were done and brought us plates, forks and knives for the cake. I offered Maria and our waitress some cake, but they denied. When we were done eating cake, Maria asked how we were going to pay, I told her by credit card. She then promptly got the check and dropped it off on our table. Our waitress then came back and saw the bill, I asked if we could split it, and she said sure, she went through the bill marking who got what. When she went back to the register we saw again, another lively discussion between Maria and our waitress. Our waitress came back with separate checks and the credit card machine, she kindly processed all our payments and I tipped an extra 10 euros on top of the bill (not common in Germany, but I felt bad for our waitress about the whole cake ordeal and she was wonderful).

After we paid, my stomach was hurting, so I went to the bathroom, a few minutes later I hear a loud knocking on the door. I come out and no one is there, I then go back to the table and I can see that my wife is upset, she said that Maria came to her and said “Your man has been in there for 10 minutes” and then proceeds to knock very loudly on the door. She was also speaking rapidly German to our waitress and one of our guest who understands German told us that Maria wanted us out of the restaurant so that she can have the tables and said that our table was very messy.

When I compared our table to others, it was no different from other guests and there was no one waiting at the door with two other empty tables in the restaurant. I am not sure why Maria was in a rush to have us out of the restaurant. We have dined all over Europe and I have seen all types of customer service from different European countries, I understand cultural differences but none of them have been as rude as Maria. My wife ended up being very upset with the way we were treated and did not have a nice birthday dinner for 65 euros with tip. We had our 2.5 year old toddler with us as well, who was playing with another toddler that was dining there as well. The other family with a toddler was clearly treated differently than we were.

You have been warned. Stay away from Maria or don’t go when she is there. Very...

It amazes me how some establishments maintain a high rating in spite of mediocre food and service. I believe this reflects more on the contributers instead of the establishment. Da Maria is a perfect manifestation of this sentiment. We decided to have dinner at Da Maria on a Friday evening close to 6pm. We didn’t have reservations, but the server was nice enough to offer us a table. I must state for the record, the young waitress had an amazing attitude, she could do well in the Middle East. However, the proprietor is cut from a different cloth. Indifferent, rude and passive aggressive! She definitely needs an attitude adjustment.

The other issue is most clients appear to be in last throws of their existence on this beautiful earth. There is nothing wrong with this, in fact, it should be celebrated. The issue is these people know you are not from their town and they stare at you incessantly. This would make sense if I was dressed in a clown suit, size 60 shoes, and a big red nose! Khaki slacks, with a pale blue polo with blue deck shoes does not constitute someone seeking attention from the masses. These mummies made me feel incredibly uncomfortable, as if I crashed a funeral!

Ok, but what about the food. It wasn’t anything spectacular. Your typical Germo-Italo fare. I’ve had better. It wasn’t the worst, but nowhere close to the amount of time I’ve placed writing this review. There is definitely too much pig on the menu.

AMEX was not accepted. No issues with Mastercard and Visa.

Would I go out of my way to visit here. This is (was) a one and done establishment in my opinion. There are plenty of more places with better food and service. No...

American Review 🇺🇸 - 🍝 It doesn’t happen often when I clean my plate and wish there was more, but today was the day! Everything was soooooo good. Highly recommend. We might even make this our monthly date spot. 🤔

‼️ Note: It’s a smaller restaurant so I would recommend making a reservation during busier times (especially during the winter). The restaurant was 3/4 full this afternoon when we went.

📍Landstuhl still has my foodie heart over Kaiserslautern.

Please note this is a small business and the they don't speak fluent English, so please be gracious. We are guests in this...