Cella Bar — Restaurant in Madalena

Once you’re done staring at the epic ocean view and the intriguing building design, mosey on into Cella Bar and start your hip and trendy wine and food adventure.

We got the following three food items in addition to a basket of bread:

The grilled limpets: this was a dish we first tried in São Miguel and were disappointed by how chewy they were. But at Cella Bar, the experience was a 180. The limpets were so tender and flavored extremely well with generous amounts of butter and freshly minced garlic. Had them with the bread and oh boy. Yes.

Canned tuna. Yup. You heard that right. We bought canned tuna at a restaurant. It was on the menu and we couldn’t help but be intrigued. But it was local and it wasn’t disappointing! Loved the taste of the tuna and the olive oil it was packed in was deliciously fishy for bread dipping as well. I think this is available in stores around Pico though so maybe next time I’d just get that not in a restaurant? I don’t know what prices for this tuna normally look like

Belgian chocolate mousse: it’s more reminiscent of a ganache but whatever you call it, this was melt in your mouth DELICIOUS. The recommendations did not...

Unfortunately, my experience at Cella Bar was disappointing. While the location is stunning and the building is impressive, my overall impression was negative. The recent changes to the menu resulted in fewer options and even higher prices, and the English text was difficult to read due to small print and lack of contrast. When we ordered our first item, we were informed that it wasn't available. The waiter then mentioned that several other items on the menu were also unavailable, leaving us with limited options.

When our food arrived, it was nothing special and felt overpriced.

To make matters worse, neighboring tables were not cleared for a long time, and a pile of dirty plates sat in view near the bar for at least 30 minutes. While the ambience was nice, this detracted from the overall experience. The worst point was when my wife commented that a large section of the floor near our table was covered in ants, which was not only unpleasant but also unsanitary.

Overall, while the location and building were impressive, the negative aspects of my experience at Cella Bar outweighed...

I am not going to evaluate the food as I did not had the chance to try it.

Basically my bad experience was related with how they manage the table queue. We came there before the opening and they told us that they'll seat us when the restaurant opens. Meanwhile they told us that we can seat and have a drink in the bar. We did so. 20 minutes passed, 30...40...and we were not seated down. We asked the waiter. And he said that we had to wait 5 more minutes. Then we understood something went wrong, we checked the dinning room and we realised it was full. When we asked the maitre he confessed that he made a mistake and that he gave our table to two other groups because he did not realise that we were in the bar. After almost one hour waiting there we had to leave without dinning and they did not even offer a discount in the drinks we had.

Advice for the management. You should not take the record of the table queue only by writing down the number of people, without any name to link the reservation. Imagine that, for example two groups, same size came and both say they came...