Alambique — Restaurant in Calheta

Unbelievable how bad my experience was here.

I booked a room here for our anniversary. I was so excited since the hotel is gorgeous. When I reached out to make a reservation the person I spoke with tried to upsell me this “romantic” package which really is you eating in this awkward room. I declined as it was also very expensive so they told me “we’ll see what we can do”, giving the impression the restaurant was very booked.

When we go there I was turned away because I was wearing very nice leather sandals… but they “don’t allow sandals”.

When I returned with my only other pair of shoes (doc martens) and was taken to our table THERE WAS LITERALLY ONLY TWO OTHER PEOPLE IN THE RESTAURANT. AND THEY WERE BOTH WEARING SANDALS. To add insult to this, their staff were wearing adidas, just regular sneakers. They don’t even own up to their own standards.

I was floored at the blatantly obvious ageism, discrimination - whatever you want to call it. It was beyond rude.

The food it self was as expected, expensive but deeply, disappointing. The tuna was extremely salty, covered in a gravy that reminded you of a frozen meal. My octopus was so tough it was inedible. None of the other dishes were good, we ate so little they offered to comp one dish.

The service was… overbearing. We felt like we were being watching the whole time. Which, given there were only 4 people in a 100+ person restaurant - makes sense.

The hotel is great but absolutely steer clear of...

Food 7/10 Service 9/10 Atmosphere 8/10

The main course was pretty good but I got the impression that the chef was more mindful about the presentation than a refined taste. It was good, but not mind-blowing good. The big plates that weren't pre-heated also meant that due to the plate-to-food ratio the food got cold pretty quickly :(. Same thing with the dessert - beautiful presentation, but due to it being served on a big plate, the ice cream was melting quickly. Also, the strawberry ice cream (albeit very tasty) overshadowed the rest of the dish although the dish was called "Mango". In that case it didn't matter that much, because the dessert was very small. Moreover, don't expect more than 3-4 heaped tablespoons of dessert. I can't really recommend the desserts. The starters on the other hand were very good and came in the right size.

The staff was very friendly, quick, professional and accomodating. We did not feel left alone or staff being too pushy.

The atmosphere of the restaurant was nice, the decorations in the hotel and the restaurant were very beautiful. The only downside for me was how they laid out the tables of the restaurant and the counter, because it's like one big walkway in the middle with tables to the right and left. Due to that it didn't feel as atmospheric, but I can also understand it from a hotel perspective.

Overall, I would go again, but would be cautious about the...

Not worth the money, at all. The restaurant claims to be one of the premium restaurants of the island, the truth is the opposite. We have been eating much better for only a fraction of the price, and the restaurant is absolutely not up to the standard they pretend. We had the "signature menu" including wines (more than 200€ for 2 persons): the wines did not fit with the menu at all. Despite that, the staff made mistakes by serving the wrong wines with the wrong dish the food was off a moderate quality, not cohesive, refined or inspiring the food or wines were not presented at all, we would like a bit more explanation than: "this is a white wine from Portugal", "this is the soup",... the menu is not balanced. the prices are already way too high, but on top of that the menu price is higher than announced in the hotel app and a lot of hidden charges are applied.

The hotel is lovely, unfortunately the restaurant takes down...