La Patrona — Restaurant in Saint Martin

Since we were staying at the Simpson Bay Resort and Villas, La Patrona was our go-to for most meals. We ate the breakfast buffet every day. A huge variety of food was available on the breakfast buffet daily. You would always find a fruit cocktail (NOTHING like canned fruit cocktail!), bread pudding, tapioca pudding, fresh fruit, cubed cheeses, yogurt and granola, with toppings. There was always sausage (really, just fancy cut hotdogs, but cooked with onions and peppers and great flavor), French toast (all but one day that we ate there), scrambled eggs, hard boiled eggs, johnny cakes, waffles, and pancakes, along with some Mexican favorites which varied from day to day. One day, I had a chicken and cheese tamale which was delicious! Of course, there were the usual standbys of toast, cereal, muffins, and juice and coffee available.

They have a dinner special on most nights...we had lobster twice. I opted for the lobster thermidor once, and then lobster with butter the next time. Oh, and definitely order the shrimp cocktail at least once! Goodness! We had the large, and split it between us. There were so many shrimp!

We also ate off the menu. The Lime soup was terrific. I added chicken to it. It’s loaded with vegetables like peppers, onions, tomatoes, and celery. I normally won’t eat peppers, but the peppers in this soup were delicious and I was able to tolerate them. Too many onions for my taste, but they were large enough to see and remove. I also had the Cancun salad, which consisted of a variety of lettuce and a pumpkin seed dressing, tomato, cucumber, corn, bacon, orange slices, cheese and fried tortilla strips. It was fantastic. The orange slices are FRESH...not canned mandarin. The bacon was crispy and not just bacon bits. That pumpkin seed dressing was SO delicious, too!

The cocktails were especially good! I had both the mango and passion fruit daiquiris, as well as a mojito. We ate outside every meal, and the ambiance was fantastic. Beautiful sunset views, too. The service is impeccable, and the servers get to know your faces and always seem genuinely happy to see you!

My friend had the house made Caesar salad one night...if you’re a fan of Caesar, you MUST try this. They make the dressing fresh at the table, and it’s as much a show as it is just prepping the food. They will also come table side to make flambé dishes...bananas, mangoes, cherries...it always smelled terrific. We had their key lime pie for dessert twice. They are individually made in tart pans. The filling was delicious and creamy. Perfect ending for dinner.

Don’t expect to get tap water when you order water...you’ll pay $6 for a liter. I switched to Diet Coke after that!

It’s definitely a place to try. It’s great to have a restaurant right there...

The food was great. Our Waiter Francisco was not. I have to say that it was Christmas Day, and we should have chosen to eat at home. Our reservation was at 8pm. We got our main meal around 10:30 pm. It was a set menu. He took the order for our soup and only when he brought it back, he placed the rest of our order, promising us that it would be there on time. It was not. The soup, both soups were really nice. The salad was terrible, as was the potato salad. The steak was really tasty but mine was overdone, as was my husband’s, but we were SO hungry we didn’t dare send it back. The lobster was cooked really well. The vegetables were cold and undercooked, but by then I just wanted to get my 7yo to bed. The dessert was not worth waiting for. The wine arrived and wasn’t opened till we asked. Same with the second bottle. We never got offered any water after the first bottle, I wasn’t drinking wine and was really thirsty but basically gave up as I just wanted our food to arrive and not delay anything. When our food was late he then rushed the desserts on us, telling us the kitchen made him do it. The wine was WAY overpriced. It was a waste of our time and next year we will eat at home, like we...

One star rating is for the customer service. I would give the food 3 stars. Average cost of the food is $23-$25 US for average Mexican food.

When we were ready to pay for our meal, I gave the waitress my credit card to pay. She returned saying that the internet was down (the waitress said it happens all the time) and asked if we could pay with cash. Like many other travelers, I don't carry alot of cash with me so we did not have enough to cover the $125.00 bill. We asked if they could write down our card info and run it later? They said no. We asked if they had any other options for us and they said no. Any reputable business would have some sort of back-up plan for internet issues; remember the old school credit card machines that used carbon paper?), but this restaurants back up plan was to send me on a 10 minute walk in a rainstorm to a ATM machine.

I don't care what country your from, this is poor customer service and I urge those who travel to Sint Maarten to avoid this restaurant since there are so many...