BytheWine — Restaurant in Lisbon

I was in on Saturday around 6pm, with a dinner reservation, sitting at the bar. My experience wasn't great, but that's mainly due to the service, especially the bartender/food prep guy, skinny, with the man-bun. I saw someone else comment about him as well. He's got a pretty bad attitude and also just seemed more interested in joking around with the staff than doing his job. I had an early dinner reservation and in general it was hard to figure out who was a bar-back and who was a bartender as nobody actually asked what I wanted for a good 10 mins of getting a menu, sitting there staring at everyone stand around or move glasses around. Finally, man-bun came and asked, and I ordered a bottle of water and a port & tonic. He brought the water and then took off to the back area and never came back. After 10 more minutes of sitting there a younger guy, came and asked me if I needed something, then he made my drink. He was a nice kid and was helpful. Then man-bun came back after about 30 minutes and service went downhill again. I wanted to order another drink and asked for the menu again. He gave me the menu and walked away. Then he started setting up the spots beside me and I asked if I could order a drink and he was like: You need to wait! And then proceeded to seat new people at the bar and help them. The newbies were two French women who sat beside me. They asked him if he could recommend bio/organic wine without sulfites and he responds: what!? No. And laughed in their faces, mutters something about Portuguese wines and points to the menu.

The women were clearly flustered by his reaction. By this point i figured why risk having a bad night with this guy, put down some money and left. The overall vibe of the place is high energy which I liked, and the one drink I had was made with care by the other kid (who doesn't like sardines, lol). I think this could be a fun place, but if you see man-bun at the bar - maybe ask for a table. Dude is just super unprofessional and simply does not know how to interact with customers and clearly doesn't care if you have a good...

By the Wine was recommended by a friend to check out during a visit to Lisbon and it was one of the best experiences during our stay. Great cozy yet lively ambience. The unique design with wine bottles lining the arched ceiling is worth stopping in for just a glass of wine if not staying for a long dinner as we did. I messed up the reservation and we came a day early and the host was very accommodating and squeezed us in. I do suggest a reservation as on a Tuesday evening in January the place was packed rom 8:00 pm on. My husband and I were served by Barbara who was fantastic. She didn’t just take our order, she provided personal and candid suggestions for both the meal and wines. Given the varietals in Portugal aren’t typically offered in the US, she brought us several options to try before pouring a glass. The food was perfectly timed and spaced. We had the Tuna tartar which is served on a fried plantain and has bright chili sauce, Veal Carpaccio which was incredible and chicken samosas. We shared the Chuleton steak which serves at least 2 but perfect for 4 if sharing other entrees. This cut of steak has quite a bit of fat so while the portion is large much of it is bone and fat. The meat was well prepared and tender but had we known the cut have that match fat on it we may have opted for something else. We finished it off with a lime pie which was delicious, much lighter than a traditional key lime pie you would find in the states. Barbara brought us 3 port options to try. Of course we went with the 40 year option which was 35 eruos a glass but it was by far the best and worth a splurge for us. The other options were nice as well and 7 euros a glass so you can really find a variety of great wines at different...

The food is nice and we had some good tasty wine but the staff makes some 'mistakes'. They served the same bottle of wine to us and all the tables around us, despite of the total different dishes they took and explained way more about the grapes for example, to them, which is a bummer cause we choose the restaurant because they are recommended for this. The first one, they didn't even tell us what wine it was, just filled the glass and left. And the seconde one, we had to ask ourselves about the region, kind of grape,... as a couple who love to know more about wines, it was quite sad. They also forgot multiple times to add what we ordered on the bill, so we had to ask several times where our drinks were. We felt a bit neglected compared to our neighbours. It is also weird, because when you make the reservation online, you can add special occasions like "birthday" and I saw it on the reservation it was added for our table. It is ofcourse, not obligated to do some stuff extra but just the good treatment that our neighbours had, would already have been nice. We don't know if it was the stress or too many people at the restaurant which makes it too hard to follow smoothly.. There was one waiter though, who served our dessert wine and dessert and he was very nice and made up a bit for the rest, he really tried! To finish with some positive vibes, the restaurants design is very...