Balcony Restaurant — Restaurant in Ponta Delgada

Hard pass, quite possibly the worst service and meal I've had in Europe.

We made reservations for our group months ago for this dinner, it was the end to our trip together and was planned on being a big, festive dinner.

Wine list was good if organized oddly, but delicious options were found, ordered sparkling and some apps. Apps were wrong, which took an odd amount of time to resolve. Bread amounted to a single roll for €3.50/ person.

After about 90 minutes or so, we had to ask to order entrees (should have cut and run there, our mistake). We then had to follow up after about another 45 minutes to see if we were getting our entrees, and after another 10 or so minutes, we were served. All the meals had clearly been forgotten about after plating, as everything was about room temp. Butter topping the steaks was not melting, octopus was a hard ball, sauces congealed. Our hungry group ate some (3 hours after sitting), but truly, I've done better with a microwave. We did speak to the Assistant Manager, who turns out had been serving us, and we were told among other reasons it was because we didn't order starters and entrees at the same time. Asked for the bill, and he came back to ask if we wanted dessert, with our half eaten plates still in front of us. Some items were removed from the bill, and our entrees were discounted 10%, however this did not make up for the wasted evening. He hoped we enjoyed our meal and would come back again. At some point I started to wonder if this wasn't some sort of joke on us. In the end we left after 4 hours hungry, quite annoyed, and bewildered.

That this restaurant is attached to a 5-star hotel is incredible to me. You'll have a better experience at the Burger King...

Honestly, the worst experience on the island. Not even the worst dining experience, but the worst experience of all the wonderful activities we enjoyed while in Sâo Miguel.

It all started with our breakfast which we have been having at Balcony for 6 days (we stayed at the Grand Hotel Açores Atlântico). The breakfast was outright sub-quality. Only a breakfast buffet is offered, no à la carte option. The breakfast choices were rather poor, 4 choices of cold cuts, 4 choices of supermarket-quality cheeses, the hot proteins were limited to bacon and rock hard tiny breakfast sausages (were they supposed to be of a chorizo variety?), no omelette station, no breakfast potatoes (potato croquettes were offered instead), hot mushrooms, baked beans and baked tomatoes, that was basically it. All of the above resembled a budget cruise ship breakfast offerings and most definitely didn't qualify to be a part of a 5-star property. That should have raised a red flag.

Later on we dined at the same restaurant, opting for the restaurant's so-called Chef's Tasting Menu. The restaurant has obviously decided to jump on the trendy and profitable"menu dégustation" vagon. The problem was that it turned out to be a feeble attempt at haute cuisine. The food was simply badly prepared, tasteless, the choice of ingredient poor, the presentation sloppy and unattractive. If the Grand Hotel Açores Atlântico wants to continue to enjoy their status of the only 5-star property in Ponta Delgada, they got to implement serious changes in their restaurant,...

CAUTION

We visited this restaurant because we stayed at the Grand Hotel on our honeymoon. Upon arrival the maitre d’ congratulated us and told us he had chosen a special table for us with a special view. Sitting at the table was a corked bottle of champagne in an ice bucket. The maitre d’ explained that the wine was a special bottle for a special occasion. He asked us if we would like to enjoy the bottle all the while making us think the bottle was a gift from the hotel/restaurant (several “luxury” hotels and restaurants on our honeymoon gave us free drinks in celebration and used the same language he used when indicating they were giving a gift. In fact, this restaurant later gave us free dessert wine). Neither of us like champagne but wanting to be gracious we accepted what we thought was a gift. The service throughout the meal was excellent, but when the bill came the bottle we thought was a gift was €150. Needless to say we were quite annoyed that the maitre d’ tricked us into tripling our bill for a drink that we don’t like and didn’t taste good.

The food...