Quinta del Carmen — Restaurant in Oranjestad (city)

We chose this restaurant based on the websites description of a magical, setting within a beautiful garden, twinkling lights, surrounded by lush, greenery and native flowers. We chose to eat in the garden, which actually turned out to be Astroturf. We ordered off of the tapas menu as that was the only menu that was served in the “turf garden“. There were two in our party. We ordered six separate tapas items. They brought three dishes out at a time, however, they neglected to provide us with any utensils to serve with. We were each left with one butter knife and a single fork while our waiter quickly dropped our food off and then went MIA. Additionally, we were each given one saucer sized plate to eat from. As you can imagine, each individual tapas had its own flavor. However, since we receive no additional plates to eat from, and we were served six separate dishes, our small saucer, size plates, became a cacophony of mixed flavors. I will say , the food was mediocre at best. I think anyone can fry up some shrimp with Panko breadcrumbs. I found nothing about the experience, as we were looking forward to a magical garden, like setting as described in their website, and we ended up on Astroturf about 50 feet off the road. It’s a busy road, so you hear every car going by and it certainly takes away from the quote magical” experience, you’ve been led to expect. Out of six separate tapas dishes we ordered, we were given no serving utensils, one small saucer, sized plate on which we were expected to eat . How hard is it to serve a spoon alongside of a communal dish. How hard is it to simply bring an additional plate out so that you can enjoy the flavors of each individual dish on its own, not mixed with the sauce from the previous fove dishes. The service was average. However, we were literally the only ones in the restaurant so it wasn’t as if we were there during rush-hour and overlooked. I do not recommend this restaurant. It is not charming, nor magical, as described. If you’re into eating very average food, coupled with the constant passing of speeding cars, and an Astroturf lawn with minimal greenery then you found your oasis. They simply need to DO BETTER and not misrepresent the “monumental garden experience” as they post on their sign out front. This is as close as I’ve ever gotten to eating on the side...

We were not expecting to eat here initially. It came as a recommendation from another restaurant nearby because they had a special event.

The architecture of this restaurant is breathtaking. We found out that it was originally a hospital that the owners renovated it into a restaurant. We were seated in one of the garden dining areas. I only wish the food was at the same level as the space.

For drinks, my partner started with a watermelon caipiroska, which they say tasted like a jolly rancher (an American candy). It was too sweet for their taste. They also ordered a basil lemon gimlet and thought it was quite delicious.

We ordered Carmen’s blue cheese salad and ceviche for appetizers. They really liked their salad but I was really disappointed with my ceviche. Let’s just say my favorite part of the ceviche was the pickled onions in the salad accompanying the ceviche.

For dinner, I ordered the seafood paella and they got the grouper, mushrooms and truffle. I asked the waiter what was in the paella and they missed a few of the ingredients. Unfortunately, one of the ingredients they missed was squid, and I don’t prefer sautéed squid. This was the reasoning for my inquiry of the ingredients and would have liked to omit squid from my paella. Overall, the paella was very good. This was not at all true of the grouper, mushrooms and truffle. It came with really dry linguini pasta. We had to ask for extra sauce, which didn’t seem to improve the dish. My partner found it inedible. I had some and we both looked at each other and mouthed that the pasta tasted like it could have come from Olive Garden.

Since my partner had not eaten anything other than their salad, we got the “nuts four brownie” desert. I ordered it because I love brownies but should have had some of my partner’s. The brownie was quite dry. Thank goodness it came with ice cream and whipped cream.

Lastly, a restaurant of this caliber should not place cutlery on a bare table for sanitary reasons. When we asked to have our cutlery replaced, the waiter became visibly upset at...

This is my favorite eating experience in Aruba so far. We ate at the A La Carte Menu, which is absolutely what I would recommend if you want to experience Quinta Del Carmen.

We had two potato soups (the special) which was probably the best soup I’ve had in my life, the cheese croquettes (comforting and special with that raspberry sauce twist, not that I would die to order it again) and the scallops with this incredible cheese sauce that we were cleaning up by the spoon. For main course, we had the fish and Brie and the Dutch meat dish (sorry, forgot the name) and both were incredible. My boyfriend and I shared everything and we thought those two shared dishes made for a great balance - the fish meal having all ingredients layered overtop, whereas the meat was a heavily seasoned and slow-cooked meal that packed a punch.

Joanna was our waitress and she was such a pleasure. She’s actually the one who recommended the latter beef dish, and she gave us exceptional service all night, sharing her love and passion for the restaurant she’s working at and caring to ask us what we thought of the food she and her team provided.

I asked about any merch and the manager sold me this 5$ handmade magnet, it’s absolutely adorable and my suggestion to the restaurant - you guys should sell these more publicly cause it makes magnet lovers like me very happy.

Thank you to the whole team for this amazing dining experience in Aruba....