MaréAlta - Peixe & Mariscos — Restaurant in Machico

We thought we'd drop in for one last lunch before heading to the airport. That turned into us almost missing our flight.

Even as we sat down, we could tell the place was severely understaffed—several waiters were frantically rushing between tables, constantly apologizing.

While we were waiting, I stopped the waitress multiple times to ask how our order was coming along. She kept trying to reassure us: “It’s already being prepared,” “The shrimp is cooked, but they don’t want to put it on the salad while it’s still hot,” “Just three more minutes.” Well, as it turned out, it was all a lie. When I went up to the counter, I saw panicked looks and confusion all around. A gentleman in a pink shirt (possibly the manager) came over and eagerly showed me that the order had only been sent to the kitchen 15 minutes ago—which didn’t impress me much, since by then we had already been waiting for an hour.

We couldn't wait any longer for our incredibly complicated dishes (shrimp salad and tuna steak) because our flight was about to leave. At least they didn’t charge us for the drinks (which is why they’re getting 2 stars instead of 1).

My advices for the restaurant:

If you mess up, just own it and apologize—simple as that.

Hire more wait/kitchen staff. The poor folks there clearly can’t handle that many tables during peak hours.

Hire a bartender. I don't understand why the waitstaff has to do...

I'm writing this review with a great deal of disappointment. Our experience at this restaurant was terrible from start to finish. We waited over 15 minutes just to receive a food menu, and then had to wait even longer for a drinks menu, which was missing from the start. After we finally placed our order, we were told that one of our dishes would take over an hour to be prepared. What was even more frustrating was that the rest of our food, including the meals for my wife and children was also delayed by the same amount of time. Drinks that we ordered we finished before our food was even served. We ordered additional juices for the kids and a Coke, and while the juices arrived eventually, we waited over 20 minutes for the Coke. We chose this restaurant for its location, but I deeply regret that decision. The entire experience was frustrating and left my family furious. My wife and children even had to go back to our accommodation to get jackets, and when they returned, our food was still not ready. I strongly advise against dining here and will certainly not...

The fish dishes are good, because fresh fish can be had all over Madeira! I wont eat that this restaurant ever again because of the way I saw they handled food! First of all, they are not cheap, they have an extremely slow service and don't really care about the clients much. But what I saw there, made me almost never want to eat in any restaurant again! Once as I got tired of waiting for the waiter to bring the bill for my coffee, i went inside to pay and while I was waiting at the counter for someone to come and take my money, I saw these three guys handing the food on three plates they were getting ready to take out to a table. they were touching the food with bear hand, moving them from plate to plate (and that was cooked veggies and meat). One guy had long beard, scratched his bear and then hands back in the food, none of them had gloves on. I can imagine how often those guys wash their hands. Especially that there is not enough soap in the...