Restaurante Vicente by Carnalentejana — Restaurant in Lisbon

Let me start with the positives....I've had this place saved to visit for over 3 years. Coming from London and having been to some of the best steak places there, we had to give Vicente a try.

The decor is wonderful. The place is cosy and romantic. The music playlist was great. That about sums it up.

However, service is below average at best. We had the most uninterested waitress possible, who maybe didn't care about making a decent tip from us. No smiles, zero care for our comfort the whole time.

Husband's chair was wobbly/broken so he had to ask for a new one which was replaced straight away. My side plate had a chipped bit, unlike all the plates around us. I didn't complain but it was obvious.

We ordered a bottle of red wine, olives and croquettes for starters, two steaks for mains. The olives arrived, the croquettes never arrived and we got served our steaks pretty quickly.

When we asked what happened to the actual starters, we were told there was a delay in the kitchen, but they were indeed coming. Bit odd! We had already started eating our mains so we asked if the croquettes could be cancelled. Our bored waitress said they had already been ordered in the kitchen so we couldn't cancel them.

Fine...we finished our steaks...just below average to be honest. Our waitress cleared the table and said the croquettes were still coming, but if we wished to cancel it was fine...we just sort of smiled and laughed. We were served the boiling croquettes 10 mins later with a fake apology, no plates and no napkins either. They weren't tasty by the way. A starter that took over an hour should have been better than average.

Finished the croquettes and wine, our waitress never bothered to ask us if we wanted coffee or dessert like the tables near us. We paid €64 for an average dinner, and couldn't wait to leave.

Advice to management: train your waiters to be customer centric. The food is decent but not great enough to excuse s#@& attitude from staff. Good luck making a name...

Not a very good experience at all! I gave 2 stars for the location. Vintage and rustic vibe caught my eye as I was walking down the beautiful streets of Lisbon. The restaurant had plenty of servers but combined, it was like having none. Lack of organization was noticeable. We spoke to a server and asked for a table for 3 pax. She told us to wait a minute that the table was being cleaned, turned around and walked away (not to go and prepare the table, but to go talk to the other server at the bar.) So we kept waiting outside by the door. Another waiter approached us and asked if we wanted to eat, and said that there going to prepare the table and again... similar situation... that happened a total of 3 times with 3 different servers while we waited out. At that point I should have walked away, but since the place looked quite nice, I walked in and spoke to the lady at the bar and the chatty waiter, and finally got a table. Waited another 5-10 minutes to have our drinks order taken, 4 minutes for 2 beers and a coke zero. The waiter brought the wrong thing I asked him to change and the did after we waited another 5 minutes. (I speak portuguese as well, so language was not an issue)

We ordered shrimp and a Medium steak. The shrimp was just ok, not that fresh. The steak came out rare to medium rare, almost cold inside. I asked them to cook to medium. They did it but as we all know, the meat that wasn't all that before, was even worst after reheating it. Bare in mind the couple next to us left the entire steak due to the same issue. Long story short...

Lack of a manager, unprofessional servers, and a mediocre kitchen.

2 stars for the place alone. 0 for the rest....

Not great at all

Let’s get straight to the good and bad:

Good: -garlic prawns, tasted great however not many of them and doesn’t come with bread -white wine was nice -waitress was nice and spoke good English

Bad: -as the prawns didn’t come with bread we bought some, it was called bread with olive oil however didn’t even come with the oil with it. Cost €2.50 and was literally 3 small bits. Pretty stale.

-they had run out of entrecote so we bought 2 sirloins. The piece of meat that arrived was not a sirloin at all, and had a line of strong grizzle running through the middle. One came with three slices in it to see if it was cooked enough. I ordered medium rare and one side was completely brown and the other side almost raw (it would be difficult to do that if you were trying) To be clear, what came was not a sirloin so I’m not sure if they are deliberately giving a cheaper cut or they genuinely don’t know what sirloin is. The three cuts show they didn’t know what length of time cooks a steak to each level of doneness.

-service was super slow

-came to €65 which is on the expensive side while being a worse meal than many other places we have been to during...