Dote — Restaurant in Lisbon

It was terrible experience. First, the staff let us wait in line at the entrance for no reason. They were more free tables there as well as many waiters and waitresses, they kept just looking at us without even a gesture of greetings. They simply decided to ignore us, probably hoping we would give up and go away. When waiting around 15-20 minutes, we decided to go to ask one of the many staff going slowly around, the waitress seemed annoyed and replied: "You need the covid certificate.". After that "nice welcome" we got our table and ordered beers. After a while, the waitress came to announce with her very simple English that it is not possible to sit there with only beers and no food order. "We are not a bar, we are restaurant", she said. We opposed that in their name is "CERVEJARIA", so we came to enjoy some beer. She replied that it was a "MISTAKE IN THEIR NAME AND IF YOU DO NOT WANT TO EAT, YOU NEED TO FINISH THE BEERS AND LEAVE". There were many free tables around, it was almost 11pm, so not many people were expected to come at such time to eat. I found it very rude that they did not let us to have more beers and spend more money there. It is a real pity because the place is nice and beer is good. But the whole approach felt just so unwelcoming, like they would be doing us a favour the whole time. Never...

Service was extremely slow, but that might’ve been due to the December/Christmas rush. We booked tables for 50people with a drink package, but we ignored half the time we ordered drinks and the other half they “forgot” to bring us our drinks.

Then we got reprimanded by the staff for ordering more than once, due to them forgetting our orders. It was complete chaos, but as aforementioned, it was the December/Christmas rush, therefore the 3 stars.

The food however, was horrendous in my opinion. I ordered the cod, it was far too salty, far too dry and the sides were salty and lacking of any other spices.

The turkey was also super dry and over salted. I can’t say much about the francesinha though.

I’m not sure I’ll be going back there...

I went with a group that took seafood, burgers, and a vege option. The shrips were good and quite cheap, and the guys that took the burgers were over the moon. However, the vegetarian options were weirdly pricy for their simplicity. The vege tagliatelle tasted okay, but it was just a tomato sauce with vegetables and spice, and the price was on par with fancier dishes, if not more expensive. I didn't feel it's worth the money. They also sent us a server who seemed to be on his first day (didn't know how to operate in the restaurant and wasn't familiar with the menu yet) and had trouble speaking English, so it was a bit hard to communicate. It felt kinda cruel that they didn't choose someone more experienced but stressed the poor...