Restaurante Tapas & Destapas ÉVORA — Restaurant in Évora

Man what a bummer.

Background/Context: We had met a few locals in Porto that mentioned “Evora has great food”. We also read some stellar reviews on this place stating things along the lines of “best meal we had in Portugal”. So.. we went in with [high] expectations. Unfortunately, the experience was brutal.

Before the bad, the good: Cool vibes Great music Chill atmosphere Mushrooms were awesome Nice waiters

The bad: Uncleaned shrimp. Apparently this is a preference, but I’m always surprised when I order shrimp at a restaurant and they serve them with the “vein” still in tact. The shrimp themselves looked awesome but took a bike and had a thiccc dark vein still in it. Unfortunately unappetizing and ruined the dish for me. Maybe should have served as a red flag but we continued on. Ordered the steak, which, I recognize the instant scoff I would give someone who ordered a 16 Euro steak and expected anything, but I’ll just share my experience and you can take it for what it’s worth:

• We asked for medium rare, which admittedly was probably dumb on account of being served poop shrimp to start. Steak was purple when it arrived (but gray on the outside), raw vs rare. Which the chef (cook) willingly chose to serve because it comes sliced. We tried to eat the end two bites but it really was raw. So we waited [30 minutes] before we could wave down a waiter to ask for it to be cooked to medium (cutting our losses). The steak came back hilariously cooked. Honestly couldn’t tell if the cook was just pissed we sent it back or just unaware of how to cook a steak. The quarter inch thick steak was petrified and absolutely coated in salt.
• Took another 20 minutes to beg for our check to get out of there. And while the majority of the steak still sat on the platter when she cleared the table, obviously indicating it was inedible, we didn’t feel the need to beg for them to take it off the bill. So we paid for steak we never ate. Honestly wonder if the cook would have eaten it.

Moral of the story, if you go here, go here with seriously low expectations for food execution (unclear if what we experienced is their normal approach, though). Hopefully it was just an off night, but definitely dampened our stop here in Evora. Hands down worst meal...

We had the most incredible dinner at Tapas & Destapas. The food is amazing and the staff was incredible. This place is a breath of fresh air if you want to take a break of Atentejo's food. I would like to mention that the waitress had one the most incredible action I've seen. During our visit the place was almost full and a colaborator was missing, and so the waitress asked some people to wait outside because she thought they would not be served well. I really appreciated this because offering the best experience is way more important than having a crowded place where people is not...

Am exceptional restaurant. The menu and each dish was outstanding. Delicate flavors, well plated and absolutely delicious. Our compliments to the talented chef. The service was superb and to top it all the ambiance was so fitting. Would return to Evora just to go tothis restaurant. Best meal we have had while...