Coração de Alfama — Restaurant in Lisbon

Place is nice but overrated. I’m sitting here enjoying myself. I order food and wine and left a good tip. After I’ve paid and I’m leaving the lady comes and tells me I cannot Film. You literally watched me the whole hour or so I was there and didn’t say one word to me. You should have something clearly posted that says you cannot film or someone needs to say something immediately not wait until after you’ve eaten and paid and tipped. Don’t disrespect me and act like I know your rules. If you don’t say what the rules are and there is no clear posted sign stating your rules don’t approach me and act as if I should know. In all seriousness you should be grateful I’m coming into this place and spending my money and filming to bring attention to it. It’s okay though because I certainly won’t be back because there is so many places to go to besides here. I would advise people to keep walking and find another more welcoming environment where they appreciate the business and understand customer service. There is a reason they don’t have 5 stars, take note. I would certainly spend my money elsewhere next time.

A reply to the owners comment, when I came in it was dark. I sat in the corner with my wife. I used my IPhone to film with no flash. The lady singing watched me film and didn’t say anything to me. Once we left she tried to sell us her cd for 20 euro. We didn’t have any cash on us, it was end of night. I totally was okay with helping her but we didn’t have cash. I don’t even use cd’s anymore anyways. It was once she seen we wouldn’t buy her cd she started telling us we have no right to film without paying her. She at that point became rude and disrespectful. If you felt that was you should have approached me immediately and asked I do not film. Now if this person doesn’t work for you restaurant she sure feels comfortable putting customers in a bad position. Now maybe y’all aren’t familiar with people filming but that’s what happens these days with technology. Anyway it was completely unnecessary and if I come back to Alfalma I certainly will go to another place. Maybe you might want to discuss this with the singer lady and ask her why she is bringing bad name to your restaurant for her...

My wife and I went for our first Fado experience last night. I will start with the positives, and there are a few. The atmosphere was terrific. Felt like a gathering of friends as much as a dinning establishment. It was quite easy to find, which in the Alfama district can be a challenge. The performers were fantastic, 5 stars for the performance. Unfortunately there were a few issues that led to me giving a lower rating. We bought the gift card for an evening of Fado through Odisseias (they are similar to lifecooler in that they provide gift cards to a large variety of experiences, adventures, dinning and hotels). When we tried to use it the first two times we were told that they only accept one Odisseias coupon per evening, so we would have to try again. The first time we were already in town so it was kind of disappointing to have to book another night in Lisboa to use the coupon. The second (and most distressing ) issue was the food. We ordered the cataplana for two. This is a dish that we are very familiar with and have had at any number of dinning establihments. Unfortunately the cataplana here was mushy and unflavourful. It was basically one type of fish and a few prawns in a broth with some potatoes thrown in. No clams/tombril/scallops/multiple fish varieties etc. To make matters worse it took 2 hours for us to get served our main course. We got our apps right away but then it seems they forgot about us, which is odd because they were serving all around us! It was very disppointing in this respect. So in short, great entertainment, but disappointing food/service. Hope this is of...

I’m sorry to give only one ⭐️ I wish I could give 5; but only for the old beautiful lady with red lips that sang tonight (she lighted the place up and was so charming 🫶) but for the rest I don’t think it deserve more than 1; and it’s going to be very unlikely I’ll be back to this place; 1) the didn’t have many plates in the menu, I meant everything was unavailable at the beginning of the night 2) we order 2 different beef plates and they brought us the same for each one, which we didn’t mind but the beef was so hard, bland and poor quality in overall, 3) the service is appalling, it was difficult to get the waiter attention, the food needed salt and we ate it without it cuz the service came back when the finished it, 4) I found it very rude the way how they tell people to shut up, (they should kindly remind guests to make silence during the show) but instead this young fella who also sings, shush 🤫 everyone in a very impertinent way… to be honest I found it funny but then you couldn’t even eat because it makes a sound, so I started to finding rather very disrespectful, 5) they never brought back our change, it was around 10€ and to be honest just trying to get their attention was so hard that we just left as we didn’t want to argue and we just wanted to leave the place; that at some point it was like we were being held hostage

So look the food is bad, the service is bad and they also disrespectfully shut people up… the only good thing was that specific singer! It’s not Brainer - pick another restaurant maybe another restaurant that this...