Flying Fishbone — Restaurant in Aruba

For those who have time to read this, let me paint you a picture.

It’s the last day of what has been an exceptional family trip. You’ve made a reservation at Flying Fishbone, dropping $130 USD for a reservation in anticipation of a memorable final dinner. You walk in, and right away you’re struck by how beautiful the ambiance is—breathtaking, really. The staff greets you warmly and seats you. That was, unfortunately, the last high point of our experience.

Our waiter was just not good. Beyond being inattentive, he was borderline rude and consistently forgot or ignored our requests. My mother asked for more bread and was told it wasn’t complimentary—we’d have to pay extra. That’s already surprising for a place of this “caliber,” but we let it go and placed our appetizer orders.

Soon after, my father ordered the French onion soup. His verdict? Bland and tasteless. Still trying to give the place the benefit of the doubt, we went ahead and ordered our main dishes—except my father, who was still unsure whether the food would be worth it, so he decided to wait.

We passed the time chatting and enjoying what was, by then, the only good part of the meal—the atmosphere and each other’s company. Forty-five minutes to an hour went by, and our food still hadn’t arrived. When my mother asked the waiter about the delay, he said he hadn’t placed our orders because my father hadn’t placed his main dish yet—so he was “waiting.” Imagine that: he had no problem informing us that bread wasn’t free, but didn’t bother to tell us he was holding up the whole table’s food.

In response, my father quickly ordered a salad just to get things moving. But now the restaurant had filled up more, and we waited another 30 minutes.

Now for the food.

I ordered the duck, medium rare. What I got was completely raw, and the noodles it came with were drowning in a watery sauce that lacked any kind of proper consistency. You might think, “Well, that’s what you get for ordering duck at a seafood place.” Fair—but then my mother’s salmon came out dry, overcooked, and completely bland. She asked for pepper three times: the first time, nothing came; the second time, the waiter brought her an empty pepper container; the third time was finally the charm, I can't make stuff up.

My wife’s halibut was nicely seasoned—but only on the skin side, which we all know peels right off. The rest of her fish? Unseasoned and flavorless.

And to top it all off, we had mentioned it was my sister’s birthday. Nothing was done. Not even a simple acknowledgment. That really sealed the deal for us—it went from disappointing to just flat-out insulting.

Oddly enough, this disaster brought our family together in a hilarious way. We bonded over how bad it was, laughing in disbelief—a rare and strangely fun moment of unity, costing us $320 USD after tip.

As for the restaurant’s reputation, I can only assume the hype comes from how expensive it is—people probably feel like they have to justify the money they spent. The only reason I’m giving this place one star is because of the unique and beautiful ambiance. Otherwise, Flying Fishbone is massively overpriced and ridiculously overhyped.

Unless you’re going just for drinks and the view, I’d suggest throwing a dart at a map of the island and eating wherever it lands. It’s bound to be a better use of your time and money.

This place is in dire need of new chefs—and...

This is one of those places where it looks good on social media, but was not anywhere as good as it was portrayed to be. First of all, we wanted to be seated in the water and requested a reservation in advance. Since we were told that was booked way out, they were able to accommodate us somewhat which I appreciated. However, accommodating us meant having us on the edge of the water, so our table was lopsided, and I mean, half of it was deep into the sand which made it super uncomfortable to sit at. Honestly, we probably could’ve got past that but the experience just seemed to get worse. We looked around and noticed there were other tables with guests that had a fan. We had to ask our server, Kim, for a fan so that the flies would leave us alone. The food was mediocre at best. The calamari literally had zero flavor. My daughter’s food was cold (she had the steak) and I ordered the red fish and risotto and the fish was overcooked. Then it started to rain and we watched our server go to her other customers and ask if they were okay and she never came and asked us so when it started to rain harder, we picked up our plates like everyone else and walked inside to look for a seat. She told us that we could sit in the spot that we were at (yeah thanks). Then she literally disappeared the rest of our dinner. Never came back to see how things were or ask if we want anything else just simply disappeared. We really wanted to try one of their desserts, but the whole experience put us off. We had to stop another waiter at one point and tell him that we needed a taxi (you’re supposed to let them know 30 minutes before it’s you’re ready to go) and if he could please find our waitress and let her know we are ready to go. He said “oh she got caught up looking for a card because she lost someone’s credit card”. He came back with the bill and I gave him the card, then he disappeared only for our waitress to come back with the card telling us that we had to go upfront because the car needed a PIN and proceeded to try and walk away. We stopped her and said wait a minute what did you say? Then she said oh if it’s a debit card, you need to go up to the window and pay because she was busy. Huh? A debit card? That made no sense considering we told them they could run it like a credit card or I could just give them another card if it would be easier, but she was in too much of a rush, trying to get back to other customers to be bothered with us. In all the years we have been going out to eat I have NEVER, EVER not tipped someone so this was a first. Clearly, we were not a priority by any stretch of the word and at one point when we were looking to leave, we noticed there was a line forming, meaning people were waiting for the tables we were all at since nobody could be seated outside in the rain. Of course the rain is not their fault but it’s clear they don’t have a back up plan if it does start to rain. Please don’t go to this place. Save your money! Oh, and if Kim is your server, ask for someone else or maybe pay cash if you get her since apparently she loses credit cards. Fortunately, of all the meals we had in Aruba this was the only bad experience we had. The one cool thing that happened was a pelican flew up and stayed on the pole behind us. I’m sure he was looking for a fish in the water because he really wasn’t paying...

I’ve been to Aruba quite a few times but had never tried Flying Fishbone before—mostly because I assumed it was a bit of a tourist trap. But my friends were visiting for the first time and really wanted to go, so we gave it a shot. We had a 5:30 reservation, which they said was ideal for sunset. We didn’t get a table in the water, but we were still on the sand with a great view.

Honestly, I’m glad we went. Eating with your feet in the sand while the sun sets over the water is unbeatable. The service was friendly, and the food was pretty good overall.

We started with calamari and a caprese salad. The salad was very good—the mozzarella was soft and fresh and the pesto tasted homemade. However tbe tomatoes were kind of weird, maybe overripe. The calamari was a little different (more like a ground onion ring texture than the usual rings), but my friends liked it.

For mains, we had halibut, seafood pasta, and the teriyaki beef skewers. I swapped fried rice for risotto, and my friend changed the seafood pasta sauce from red to cream—both no problem at all. The halibut was a hit, and the pasta had so much seafood my friend said it might’ve been too much (not the worst problem). The beef skewers were surprisingly great—tender and super flavorful. But the risotto was my personal favorite—it flavorful, creamy, and delicious.

We weren’t planning to do dessert, but after seeing the baked Alaska, we had to. It was a total showstopper—and it tasted great too, especially the banana ice cream part inside. We also tried the tiramisu and brownie. The tiramisu was good; the brownie was just okay, not bad but nothing special.

Our waitress was super sweet—she even offered to take sunset pics for us and brought us to the best spot for it. That said, I did have a couple issues. First, every table had one of those fan-like devices to keep flies away—except ours. We had to ask for one after our food came because flys suddenly started bothering us. Once we got it though, the flies disappeared. Not a huge deal, but it would’ve been nice if it was just there to begin with.

Second, the pacing was slow. We ended up being there for almost three hours, mostly because there was a long gap between courses and an even longer wait for the check. We had to ask two different people, and by then the place had mostly emptied out.

Still, Flying Fishbone is a really cool experience. I probably wouldn’t go back unless I was with someone new to the island, but I’d absolutely recommend going once. The view is unbeatable, and even after sunset, the lights in the water make it feel...