Restaurante O Lamberto — Restaurant in Lagos

Fantastic food but poor service

A traditional Portuguese restaurant tucked away in the ‘Locals’ part of town outside the walls. A must to book on Sunday for the specialty ‘Seafood Rice’

Our reserved table was already laid with a small dish of Cod Roe, olives, small pots of cheese and sardine patê (chargeable €3).

Our server produced the menu (in English) but no wine list, he explained the special on Sunday is the seafood rice.

Having been warned the main courses are huge we forgo a starter and went straight to the main event. Ordering water, a bottle of house white wine, the pork served with chips, scallops, rice and a pot of beans and ham in a stock. I ordered the special.

My better half’s Pork arrived. The meat was delicious and very thick requiring a steak knife, chips and scallops were ok but the bean, ham and stock was delicious. The server said my seafood rice was on its way.

After 20 minutes, three reminders of the missing food and a message the ‘Kitchen made a mistake’, no real apology, my dish arrived.

The kitchen may have took pity on the long wait and gave me extra rations as the pot was huge and brimming full of Prawns, clams, mussels, pieces of crab legs, rice in a delicious stock.

It was apparent the staff where overwhelmed by the number of people seated and equally waiting at the door, rushing around not really having time to provide the level of service to meet a good dining experience. You cannot just blame the Kitchen, the waiting staff have to take responsibility for missing plates. This maybe just a Sunday special thing, I hope so as we will return at sometime in the future.

Warning, they don’t take cards, cash only, our total...

A very local experience plus one of the best meals I've had in Portugal! I came here at 6pm to reserve a table for later the same evening and apparently the restaurant was fully booked until 9pm! It didn't look much but it was a sign of good food. Me and my boyfriend ordered grilled squid and a swordfish. Both were delicious! My boyfriend is not a seafood lover but he said that the grilled swordfish was the tastiest fish he's ever had! The food is served with potatoes and vegetables. We also ordered a jar of green wine which resembled cava and prosecco but better! The prices of the main dishes were very affordable (10-13€ per portion), however, we were charged 4.20€ for the bread, olives butter, and cheese, while we only ate the olives and bread. The menu specified the prices of these sides separately and we thought we'd be charged for only those that we'd eat. Unfortunately we were charged for all of them and that's why this review is getting 4 instead of 5 stars. I'd recommend asking in advance about the couverts or just skip the olives&bread and order an actual side that you would...

Made a last minute decious to go here for lunch and we were VERY happy with that decision, The place is closed Monday, and otherwise open everyday of the week. We tried going on Sunday but we didnt reserve, and they didnt have lunch space.

The portions are big, lots of garlic and flavor. We had lamb, the famous algrave shrimps and some sort of white fish of the day which was fried. The lamb came with the best beans we have eaten in a long time, we order a HUGE portion to go after we had eaten. The desersts, there are many to see in the window, were also very very very delcious. The staff was sooo friendly and accomadating, they all spoke great english even though the place seemed to be filled with mostly locals. We are going back today, and I know we wont be dissapointed.

They open not a minute before 12:30 and stop serving at 15 and start cleaning up at 15:00. We came to the restaurant at 14:00 and they suggested we order quickly as the kitchen wanted to stop working. Keep that in mind when going...