Polo 1921 — Restaurant in Cascais

We decided to try Polo 1921 in the hope of finding at least one ok-ish pizza place in Cascais and not having to drive to Lisbon for pizza. We had high expectations looking at the photos and knowing the location, which in fact is really pretty. The atmosphere, especially at dawn is very romantic and lots of kids playing around. Unfortunately it got very confusing already on arrival. Once we found our way to the kiosk?, we were asked if we know how it worked. Strange question in my opinion, a restaurant that requires instructions? But actually not so strange to be asked, because this is no restaurant in the conventional sense. It is more like a pizza kiosk. You place your order at the kiosk, you carry your own drinks to the table, only your pizza is served, for obvious reasons. I got my first shock when I saw the price for a few glasses of wine that I had to carry myself to the table. So I get no service, yet I am being charged fine dining prices for drinks. They already lost me before I even sat down and my last hope was tasty pizza. When the pizza arrived we had no cutlery, no serviettes, no salt and pepper... oh wait, it's not a restaurant, it's self service, so let me grab that myself too. Finally, the pizza looked nice but was hope crushingly bland. Not a pinch of salt in there. Ingredients were nice but if there's no salt you can't make up for it. For a Pizza fanatic like myself who jumps on planes to travel to top rated pizza places in the world, I am sad to realise that in fact there is no good pizza in Cascais to be found. Ultimately, we left very disappointed. It's incredibly expensive for a self service pizza kiosk and the pizza didn't make up for the bad concept. But it's all in the...

Ever since this place has changed owners, things have been going downhill. Clearly, it's now about monetizing the most out of it.

The original staff has now been entirely kicked out or has left, including the head chef. You can feel it and you can tell the pizzas and especially the dough are not as good as before.

Additionally, and most worryingly, the staff now engages in borderline fraudulent billing.

The first thing that has been done is that they now add a 10% "voluntary" tip to the invoice. Perhaps usual in the US, but something rather unusual in Portugal.

The second sketchy part is how they make that total number including tip look bigger on your bill than the amount you actually legally owe them.

To add insult to injury, their staff now types in the amount incl. Tip into the card payment terminals, counting on people to be too embarrassed to want to tip less, or not tipping at all.

And to top matters off, they still display 'add tip 10/15/20% on top of the amount which already includes the 10% tip! Meaning, if you don't watch closely enough and just want to tip 10%, you tip 10% on top of the inflated number!

No, this is no coincidence, and has happened the last two times we have visited. I'm not surprised, as it seems that they have recently hired an agency to help 'staff being able to monetize their work better'.

Yes, waiters, cooks, etc all deserve a good wage, but staff monetization shouldn't be relying on borderline fraudulent practices. We will stay away...

We just celebrated my sons birthday on Sunday!! What a lovely day. We love this place not only for the tasty pizza but the family that owns Polo 1921 have become friends since our sons ride horse there every Sunday. So happy this place exists to make the day complete.. Sure it could be slow at times but your at a stable in the sun. Relax, take a walk and return to brick oven pizza.. plus its now the spot :)

On a side not, I read a review of a woman complaining about service.. it was posted on my sons birthday so I draw a connection. My wife was setting up the birthday table, whom doesn't work there when a woman kept asking to sit at our table for 20 set up for kids... we explained we don't work here, its a kids table and she had to go to the kiosk to order etc... after 20 mins we discovered she was french and we speak french. We explained again and she still was angry.. very weird woman. And there is a kids playground and play area.. and a massive property for the kids to interact with nature... so go, but don't because I might not get a seat!!

See...