Lourenço — Restaurant in Albufeira

Dont bother! I must say, i had some kind of expectations when i first saw this place but the evening ended up with me getting sooo annoyed. First of all its really expansive, which you basically pay for the view.. nothing else is special. Lets talk about food first. I ordered soup, mussels and garlic bread. The soup was not eatible. Not bad. The mussels were ok too. The garlic bread tho. That came cold and hard as a stone. Its been a week now and i still have a soar in my mouth. And i am not even exaggerating. My friends food were ok as well but boring. Nothing special. You have to order EVERYTHING extra. If you order meat nothing is included but chips i think it was. Meat also was dry. Service: We waited nearly 45 mintues until someone took our order although the place was half empty at that moment. And there were many staff as well. We also saw that we, our table, got treated differently than the others, maybe because wi didnt order the “todays fresh catch fish” which was most expansive which others ordered. Howsever. Whe also waited a very long time for our paycheck. We wanted ti pay separately BUT the one who was taking payed counted wrong and literally i sat there and did the math FOR them. Also they never came they to ask how the food was which they did to the others. I also told then about the garlic bread and that i was not satisfied but got only a sorry i will tell the chef. We also got very strange looks from some staff especially a women. Very unfriendly! I dont know wanna Get treated well and have good service and good food. Go to another place and dont bother...

First, the good stuff: Beautiful setting and an Immaculate restaurant. The side windows slide away to give inside diners a breeze and the sound of waves crashing on the beach. Stupendous. Our expectations were high.

As we were arriving, our table was ready with bread, pate, cheese and butter. We were impressed, until we got our bill at the end of the evening, and we had been charged for them! This is the first time I have had my starters picked for me, and I was not amused. The waiters even asked us if we wanted to order a starter! The gall!

The meal itself was underwhelming. The fish was delicious, but we were told we had a choice of boiled potatoes or fries with the fish, and we chose fries. And - you guessed it - we were charged extra for the fries! To add insult to injury, the fries were absolutely terrible. They looked like Macdonald's fries, but were cold, dry, and virtually tasteless. The vegetables that we ordered were simply boiled with no seasoning; very bland.

And there seemed to be a slight undercurrent of condescension from some of the servers. One of them gave a little eye-roll as I thanked them in Portuguese. I got the impression that we were a group that had to be endured.

I left the restaurant feeling disappointed...

A beautiful location on the beach. Staff occasionally broke into a smile every now and then but were hard work. I really wanted to have fish as we were right next to the sea. Disappointed to be told turbot was only for 3 people, bass only for 2, etc. I didn’t want to choose shrimps as I was having those as a starter (which were delicious by the way) Fish charged by weight annoys me, I like to know how much my dinner is going to cost without having to ask how much is this and that...In the end my husband chose to eat fish so I could. We had golden bass and it was €45. Everything else was competitively priced. Again, I couldn’t even have a glass of vinho verde. The fish and accompanying garlic potatoes were delicious, veg which was extra was plain boiled broccoli and cauliflower. Desserts were good, I had the fig & carob cake. Total bill for 3 €111

It doesn’t please me to leave such comments but the edge was taken off my idea of a beautiful...