Mara — Restaurant in Waterford

I genuinely regret leaving a negative review, especially as I had high hopes for this restaurant. I was excited to see what it would bring as a continuation of the much-loved Old Couch Café. Unfortunately, the experience fell far short of expectations.

First, I think it's important to point out something I find deeply unfair and misleading: the restaurant is using the same Instagram page and Google rating as its predecessor. This creates the impression that you're booking a table at a well-reviewed, established spot, when in reality, it's a completely different operation with very different standards. Frankly, it feels deceptive.

The atmosphere was passable, but the character of the space seemed stripped away—literally. The walls were bare, and overall, the venue lacked warmth or personality. The lighting was extremely low, and unlike other tables, ours didn’t even have a suspension light. Not a deal-breaker, but definitely noticeable.

From the start, the mise en place was inconsistent. We were three guests, yet each place setting was different. The wine list lacked any mention of harvesting years, which made it hard to justify the premium pricing. I ordered a rosé and had to request an ice bucket—it wasn’t offered. Bread and butter were brought to the table, but no bread plates were provided, which felt like a basic oversight.

Service was, unfortunately, not great either. It felt rushed and inattentive. That said, I do want to acknowledge our server—a very young, kind woman who was clearly doing her best while working the entire floor alone. I don’t blame her at all. This was clearly a management failure, likely due to lack of proper training and staffing.

I could have overlooked some of these issues if the food had been great. Sadly, it wasn’t. The "bread" offering was four dense, muffin-like lumps, supposedly Guinness bread—unpleasant and poorly executed. We ordered from a la carte menu, three different starters, mains, and desserts, and only one dish out of nine was actually good. The rest lacked seasoning and flavor.

Particularly disappointing were the melloso rice, which was undercooked to the point of being raw (not al dente—actually raw), and the pork belly, which was so tough it was hard to cut, let alone eat. The dessert baklava was rock-hard, almost like a brick, and oddly enough, the accompanying ice cream had a fishy taste—hope not cross-contamination?

We all shared our dishes and agreed: this wasn’t a matter of personal preference—it was objectively poor execution. We gave our feedback and returned most of the dishes barely touched.

When a restaurant markets itself as fine dining and charges accordingly, expectations naturally rise. But this felt more like an overpriced misstep wrapped in a misleading package. I don’t enjoy writing harsh reviews, but transparency and quality matter—and this place missed the...

Il preface with saying ive been to the old couch twice before under previous management.

The setting was cozy and familiar and the staff were friendly and attentive.

We had the 10 course menu with wine pairing. Flavour wise i enjoyed the meal thoroughly.

Now im not someone to ever complain or review a local business and speak negativlely but this issue is one that is easily fixed and i feel at this pricepoint customers should be aware.

Issue being the amount of food being served was tiny (i had been there twice before) so im aware what a tasting menu is. To the extent we were laughing all the next day imagining how we would feel if we brought friends or worse sent them on our recommendation.

However that alone would not have been enough for me to come on here and leave only 4 stars.

The wine "pairing" was outright stingy and far closer to a wine tasting than a pairing.

The dribble was poured into our glasses 5 mins before any course arrived leaving you in the unenviable position of thirstily looking at your glass but not being able to drink it as youll have none left for your course. I will say one of the wines was matched well.

Maybe i should have expected a difference when the quantity of wine you received with each course wasnt mentioned on the menu as it previously had been and at €50 per head there was no need for this level of tightness. It just left us feeling like were being laughed at.

Needless to say we rushed the end of our evening so we could get in before last orders for drinks and went to a chipper on the way home.

As i said im not someone to go around complaining ever but i said it to the staff at the time and after taking a day to consider i posted this review.

This place could easily be a 5 star experience and im delighted waterford has such an interesting place as we need all the variety we can get.

I wish the team luck in the future and il happily remove this review should i hear this...

Flawless tasting menu with the perfect pairing of wine. A must try!

We ended the dinner feeling happy, satisfied and not overly full, which is always a risk with this type of food experience.

We found the pace to be perfect. We never had a dull moment. There was a perfect cadence of: bring the wine, explain the wine, allow a few minutes to enjoy it, bring the new course, explain the course, taste the course, clean, bring the new glass & restart.

Toward the end of the dinner we started noticing how they adapted seamlessly to the pace of every table so that it felt they always left exactly the same time in between stages while they clearly weren't. Very smooth.

Luis has great storytelling and a very good sense of humor that brought lightheartedness to the dinner, something that we always like and made us feel super comfortable.

In fact, while it's clear there a lot of work went into preparing the dinner and then in serving it, I would never call this a "fancy dinner". It just didn't feel so, which means bonus points for me.

All the 7 wines served were very interesting and tasty. Some were even surprising (like the first, which was a sweet wine!).

All the courses were an explosion of flavour, often presented in surprising ways and the base ingredients were clearly very good.

If I have to call out one single area of improvement, I think the finale could be improved. I found the mini madeleine of the petit-fours underwhelming. I then lacked a strong taste to end, something like coffee as they don't have decaf (they said they are getting a new machine) or a spirit (I think they only have wine &...