Restaurante Mimar — Restaurant in Lagos

Tasty food ruined by bad service.

We ordered two different varieties of white wine, only one arrived so asked for clarification on which one had arrived so we could rectify their mistake by ordering the second. We’re met with condescension from the servers even though their colleague had only stated ‘white wine’ when they placed it on the table despite us ordering a sav blanc specifically.

Secondly we ordered the octopus main dish, it arrived and was not to our taste (the texture and temperature was a bit off) and we didn’t want to eat it. Told a server and then the manager came back and strong armed us into agreeing that the food was perfect and we were completely in the wrong for having different taste to him.

We agreed to leave the dish on the bill but ordered extra tapas dishes as we were still hungry. They didn’t arrive, so we ordered them again. They still didn’t arrive and so we requested the bill.

When the bill arrived, we waited 10 minutes to pay. The manager again arrived at the table and asked if we were happy. We were not, and told him as much. We found his attitude to be rude and intense, the whole service style was incredibly condescending. And again he told us that he was actually very polite and we were wrong, pressured us into accepting a round of limoncello as a goodwill gesture. Ultimately we accepted and he bought one glass out. We were a table of 6.

Meanwhile, the staff were shouting and swearing at each other next to the bar the whole time we were trying to eat the dishes we actually received.

The whole experience was farcical and left us feeling hungry and stressed. The food was delicious but training on customer service is...

Tapas are a dime a dozen in Portugal and Mirmar offers a good selection including items with mussels, clams, shrimp, beef, chicken and pork as well as the traditional Portuguese items. They also offer a goose selection of starters.

We had the soft goat cheese which comes warm in the rind with toast and fig jam. Like all Portuguese goat or sheep cheese, it’s unbeatable. We also had anchovies in vinegar. Small but tasty.

For tapas, we had piri piri chicken which was two thighs served roasted and piping hot. Piri piri in Portugal doesn’t really have much flavor unless you add the insane piri piri oil which is hotter than habaneros. The chicken was quite tasty and comes with fries. Good portion size.

We also had mussels with chorizo and tomatoes. Very tasty and good portion size. The pork cheeks came with mashed potatoes but had no gal or whatsoever but in defense of the restaurant, must Portuguese food is highly unseasoned which is apparently the way they like it. So no black mark for the pork. We wanted to try Trina but last experience showed us that they’re usually local pork from Portugal and very fatty

Overall a good choice for tapas but not James Beard winners or...

A Tapas ans Wine bar in the centre of old Lagos. First of all, they have a real barman and the results are in the wonderful cocktails and in the Sangria. Try a Spritz or a Gin Tonic around in Lagos and you’ll come back here running. About the dinner: We had a very good and pleasant dinner, trying many tapas and a sparkle-wine sangria. These are not the same little tapas you can find in a typical tapas bar in Spain, where you pay from 2.5 to 5 or 6€ each one, depending on the dish. Here, the Tapas are more expensive but very similar to main dishes. For example, the croquettes or the wonderful Tuna Tataki are real portions and not like Tapas. At the end, we had a terrific homemade peanuts butter cheesecake and a very good glass of Porto wine. We spent 90€ for 6 dishes, half liter of Sangria and a dessert with Porto wine. And everything was perfect. So, the cost was aligned with my...