Essência do Atlântico — Restaurant in Calheta

Don’t eat anything with tuna in it! We were there as a group of three, the two of us who ate the tuna steak suffered severe fish poisoning! Waiting time for the food was rather long as well.

Edit: I barley ate anything that day before we came to your restaurant and I felt completely fine the whole day. Right after I finished my meal I got a really bad headache which became even worse once I got home. Immediately after that, my mum who also had the tuna steak felt very sick and also passed out. We both had really bad headaches, throwing up throughout the entire night, diarrhea and skin irritations (we were completely red everywhere). If you look it up on the internet, all of those symptoms are typical for food poisoning with fish, especially tuna (because of the histamine). So it couldn’t have been anything else than the tuna. I think it‘s such a pity that you can‘t stand up for what happened. I mean everyone makes mistakes and the comment was only supposed to give others a heads up before being sick for the whole night and...

The ambiance was pleasant, but we were disappointed with the service. We were attended to by three different staff members, and only one of them was friendly. The octopus à lagareiro was delicious, albeit slightly underseasoned. However, our experience took a downturn when we ordered two different desserts. One of them, the crème brûlée, was far from fresh and not fit to be served. It seemed to have been sitting for days, as it was flattened in the middle. When we tasted it, it was hard and spoiled, crumbling into small pieces. Upon bringing this to the waiter's attention, he confirmed our concerns and apologized, acknowledging that the dessert had been sitting for a while. He promptly removed it from the final bill.

Despite bringing a guest with us, we won't be returning to this restaurant, nor can we recommend it to others. Had we not complained, we might have ended up with...

The food was barely avarage. We had a fish soup, grilled prawns and duck with orange sauce.

Soup was mostly water with tomato paste, a few drops of fish only for the smell, and a few vegetables, which did not add anything to the already bland dish. Lacked any deeper taste.

Prawns were ok, but only 5 small pieces for 11eur. My girl was pretty dissapointed.

Duck was well done and quite dry, even though I ordered medium rare. The taste was nothing special. Same with potatoes. Sauteed salad however was hideous. It tasted like nothing. If you saute vegetables please for the love of god add some salt to it. I’d rather have a fresh broccoli and carrots, than something that looks like a vegetable but tastes like warm water. The only thing that was nice in this dish was the sauce.

Overall, prices and atmosphere here indicate that it’s a respectable place, but food is just...