Restaurant & Beach bar Algamar — Restaurant in Peniche

I've been there twice, two years in a row : the first time because I didn't know what to expect, the second because they're clever enough to be the only restaurant in the area open for lunch on Mondays, so for lack of anything better and being in the pouring rain, I thought I'd give them another chance : what a bad idea on my part.

On both occasions, and despite a year's difference between the two experiences, we always had to deal with deplorable service, no smiles, no hello, extremely long waiting times, but hey, if the food is good, you can forgive them : FLY, YOU FOOLS !

You'll be dealing with poor quality food, badly prepared and, on top of that, extremely expensive ! Clams, as a starter : €19 for 6 poor clams duelling at the bottom of a bowl... Vegetable soup : there were fish scales (!) all over the bowl, with no explanation from the staff when we point them out. A fish skewer : half of the skewer was filled with onions, and frankly you could make 3 WHOLE ONIONS with just this skewer, a good technique for saving money on fish, which is frozen to boot...

The fish : not only was it obviously frozen, which is unacceptable for a seaside restaurant, but it was also badly cooked and in such small quantities... I do better with frozen salmon at home !

And once again, they fill the plate with potatoes and cold rice from the fridge, and wait to see what the tourist says...

Because yes, I was lucky enough to be able to speak Portuguese (they can't even speak decent English), but the staff were clearly disrespectful to German, French and British tourists, and unfortunately I speak all those languages 🙂

We all discussed it together on the way out, and agreed on the awful quality of this place, which none of us will ever set foot in again.

So if you're reading this review, go at your own risk : indigestion is never far away (as tested by yours truly, I wouldn't recommend ruining your holiday like that), and with restaurants on offer nearby (except on Mondays, but seriously, make yourself a sandwich, it's better), it's a shame not to give real Portuguese food a chance, which is wonderful when it's not prepared by money-hungry crooks who take advantage of tourists.

The only positive point is the view : I hope that one day this place will be taken over by someone competent and that we'll be able to enjoy the view with, at last, a...

What a petty place with management that has no notion of creating a positive customer experience: burgers do not include ketchup and mayo. You must pay 10 cents for every packet of each. Same for fries. The server was even embarrassed to tell us about this policy.

We ordered 6 burgers and fries. Anyone who didn’t just want a dry burger between two mediocre supermarket buns has to pay 20 cents each extra if they wanted ketchup and mayo on their burger, plus another 10 cents for every additional packet of sauce for fries, etc. We were charged for 10 and received 9 packets so we told the server that we only received 9 and he came to the table to count one by one to make sure it was true—absolutely pathetic, almost sounds like a comedy script.

What’s next? Charging for oil and vinegar if you order a salad?

It would have otherwise been a perfectly acceptable experience but the utter pettiness of the owners to charge per packet of sauce, to not even include any ketchup in the cost of a 12 euro burger, and then return to the table to “audit” if we had received one extra packet or not, is absurd and makes customers not want to go back, as is the case for everyone...

We told the service staff about our experiance but would like to leave our feedback here too because we could feel that the lack of wellbeeing of the custemer quiet sure finds it beginning on the owners of the pleace who seem to not be leading and passioate about a good customer experiance and sense of meal/food quality.

Octuoussalad was one from the worst we ever had. So much taste of vinegar from the olives and coriander (which was not mentioned on the menu). Then the deep fried fabric calamary where also not a culinary tasty and fresh as we expected.

And all this for a higher price then average.

Butterbread and the beer was the only good thing about our experiance. After giving the feedback to service staff the only recompensation was a "sorry". We paied full price for all the meal we couldnt even enjoy. Would really not recommend to go there. Unfortunately we didnt have time to check google about...