Centru Laburista — Restaurant in Marsaxlokk

TL;DR: stay away.

I wish I had checked the reviews before sitting down at the inviting seaside table.

Initially, nothing suggested a bad experience. The first sign was a printed insert into the menu, saying that their credit card machine is "broken" today. Check other reviews, it never actually worked.

The service was attentive, we were presented with a choice of fresh fish for our dinner (see the picture). We ordered two grilled fish and a fish'n'chips dish. So far so good.

The wait was pretty long but considering that the fish needed to be prepared and grilled, it was acceptable. The server kept us supplied with sparkling water.

The food arrived, the presentation was quite bad (salad was tossed over french fries, fresh fish was served in the aluminum foil in which it was grilled. Both of the fish were overcooked by at least 5 if not 10 minutes. The red snapper we ordered was burnt on the underside. The rockfish was just overcooked, not burnt.

There needs to be a special mention of fish'n'chips. The chips were not crisp, as if microwaved. There were two pieces of a fish-like substance covered in a thick batter. The fish-like substance had no flavor whatsoever. The tomatoes in the salad tasted stale, if not rotten.

In the evening, I became violently ill, I suspect the fish-like substance in the fish'n'chips.

All in all, the service was actually good but given the problems with the food and then the stomach problems after eating the food, I cannot rate this restaurant higher than 1 star. Oh, and the bill was almost 100 Euro for three people. You can get much cheaper and much better food almost everywhere else in...

We were looking for a nice restaurant and came across Centru Laburista. At this time, compared to the other restaurants, there were the most guests. So we decided to go in, because we thought "Many guests, so it should be quite good".

When we got the menu, I was in disgust. It looked like no-one ever thought of cleaning it. It was sticky, it felt sandy and on one of the last sites there was something that looked like leftovers. I was so thankful I brought my hand sanitizer with me. Me and my dad, we both decided to get fish and ordered it. And then the waiting began. We waited for nearly an hour. At least three guests who came after us, got their food before us. After we asked where our dinner is, it came real quick. We would have paid for our drinks and left if the food wouldn't have come after 10mins after we asked. So, we finally got our food. My dad told me his fish tasted like nothing. Mine was extremely dry and the consistency reminded me of overcooked pork. Not what I would call fresh fish. The salad I ordered with tasted sour in a weird way. Just the roasted potatoes were okay.

It seemed like they didn't have a plan of serving at all. Complete chaos. One was just trying to get many guests as possible in...

DO NOT GO. ALL REVIEWS ARE TRUE! Avoid the unnamed umbrellas and menus offering “to share” seafood platters: Shellfish Royale, Mixed - Fish, Mixed - Bream.

This is worst than going to fast food run by miserable untrained teenagers. The seafood was NOT fresh. The king prawn smelled fishy. The flesh was mushy. The clams and mussels were sandy. The calamari fritti was unnaturally tender. Staff were not smiling nor friendly nor apologetic for mistake. They messed up sequence of order, my table ordered first but our neighbour received first, the lead staff knew and was talking to his colleagues. I was watching and I only said we are hungry and asked if we can have the sides first, he replied that yes he told them. I couldn’t doubt at the moment since I don’t speak the language, but we waited again until all our food was served at once. No acknowledgment or addressing their mistake. Another table was complaining about their food and asked the waiter to take the bowl of mussels back. There seemed to be some back and forth discussion even after the waiter took the bowl away and sniffed it himself. The only good thing were the fries. Standard crispy fries. You can go to any other restaurant...