Taberna do Teatro — Restaurant in Angra do Heroísmo

Truly Disappointing – Poor Service, Long Waits, and a Foreign Object in My Food

I came to Taberna do Teatro for a casual evening of tapas and wine, but the experience was frustrating from start to finish.

When I arrived, I was rudely told to move from the outdoor patio — no greeting, just an abrupt instruction. Oddly, there was another table of the same size available and plenty of open seating inside, but the waiter said he needed it “for four people”.

Inside, I waited nearly 10 minutes just to be acknowledged and seated, and 20 more minutes before anyone came to take my order. When the waitress finally arrived, she didn’t even say hello — just asked flatly if I was ready to order. The overall vibe felt rushed, inattentive, and cold.

Things got worse from there. A stressed busboy dropped the wrong dish at my table, and when my food did arrive, it was deeply underwhelming. The beef tartare was mediocre, and the Azorean sausage with fries and egg had almost no sausage — just a few crumbles. To top it all off, I found a piece of plastic in it, which was absolutely disgusting and unacceptable. The restaurant is clearly understaffed, and the team is overwhelmed.

I rarely leave negative reviews, but this place was a complete letdown. Between the poor service, long waits, and unsanitary food, I would strongly recommend avoiding Taberna do Teatro. There are far better places to eat...

Food is really excellent! However, the service could be better. Service: I have read from other reviews that 'the staff is not motivated/lazy" but this was really not the case: there are simply not enough waiters. There were only TWO (!!!) waiters for the whole place on a busy night, also making the drinks and taking care of everything else. This is just not enough. They managed to keep everyone almost happy, but they can't do miracles. They were running around like crazy and they were not lazy at all, they were actually great. Food: The food itself is truly excellent and the menu is how I like it: few options, but done with care. You can either go for main courses or take a combinations of tapas, both were great. The cheese platter was also really good and a nice amount (in many places we've been in the Azores the amount is just too low). I hope they hire one or two more people, the waiters and the place really...

Scrolling through the reviews, I can only wonder whether I was in the same restaurant as the other guests (for dinner).

The service was inattentive, mixed up orders, was not particularily friendly and clearly had never received any service training. But maybe they had a bad day or they have different teams working the shifts.

What is more objectively off was the value for money. The portions are rather small and clearly more expensive than at comparable places in the Azores. Hard to understand how other people think this is OK - as a Swiss I am quite used to absurd prices but this was measurably worse than peers.

The quality of food of most tapas we had was just OK. Not very inspired but also not completley off.

Overall, this restaurant is nothing I would recommend to a friend or anyone...