Les Sardines — Restaurant in Eilat

A restaurant with the worst service I encountered with zero tolerance and understanding and all this with the encouragement of the owners. We pre-booked a table for 12 adults and small children (ages 1-5), when we arrived at the restaurant we asked to first order the children's dishes as they were starving. The waiter claimed that a partial table reservation could not be made and demanded that we complete the full order of all 12 diners. We asked to talk to the restaurant owner and ask him to in the meantime allow us to only order food for the children until the rest of the diners decide what they want to order, but he also repeated the same stupid and illogical argument without understanding. Because one couple was late, he demanded that we split the table into two separate tables and that he would not take any order from us until all of them did not arrive and that he would take only one order from us. Even when we asked to order drinks or entrees the restaurant owner refused to accept it and offered us to get up and leave the restaurant. In the absence of a listening ear and after repeated requests of over fifteen minutes, we had to get up and leave the restaurant as the restaurant owner continued to scold us that we were wrong and that this was the rules of the place. We found ourselves wandering around looking for a restaurant at 8pm when our children were hungry and exhausted from this unnecessary and unpleasant incident. Recommend to families with children in particular give up the...

My wife and I both loved this restaurant. The service was superb. We witnessed one of the more senior staff showing a more junior member how to lay a table with all the detail. I always think it's important for ongoing service providers to realise that although they're providing a repeated similar service to many customers, to each customer it's a one-off experience and it's clear that Les Sardines is very aware of this. The food was delicious and beautifully presented without being at all pretentious - a cut above the other places we have eaten while in Israel despite being approximately the same price. We are finding Eilat and indeed Israel in general quite expensive during this visit, mainly due to the unfavourable exchange rate (about 4 NIS to £1 at the time of this review in July '22), so it's great to find somewhere which offers such a great experience and better value for money than other places around. My tip - try the Purely Chocolate desert. It's very rich and indulgent and a good one to share between a couple. It's basically several forms of chocolate on one plate. You really don't need one each unless you haven't had a main course first. They call it "The Purity of Chocolate" which is the literal meaning of טהרת השוקולד but that's very literal according to my bilingual niece and Purely Chocolate...

TL;DR great food and service including the children will definitely come back.

The service: First thing you meet as you walk in is the very friendly staff especially for our children (2 small kids and a baby), the staff was super accomendating and once we were sitted, they straight away took the grown up tableware where the children sat and brought them IKEA plastic tableware and even gave each the color they wanted. They also automatically rushed the kids dishes. The staff were very friendly throughout the evening, they gave good suggestions for the food and pointed out that a wine selected was slightly on the more expensive range.

The food: small one page menu, lots of fresh fish dishes as well as a few meat and pasta dishes that cater to both the fish lovers and the carnivores (although you won't come here if you want meat). The fish were fresh and cooked well (both the whole and fillet versions), the desserts were simple but tasty.

The bad: something went wrong with the fish soup, it was very salty to the point I'd not being edible (the staff took it away with no fuss and even apologized)

Special mention: our waitress...