Restaurante 3 arcos — Restaurant in Ponta Delgada

Hi,

The bits that we liked - very kind and polite waitress. She was very helpful and provided some good chat. The place was nice and tidy with good air conditioning. Food-wise - the green house vine was very tasty, perfectly chilled with some sparkles. Chicken was prepared well and my partner liked it.

Things we did not like - food! The tomato soup was tasteless, it had few small beans in it which were a bit random for a tomato soup and overall tasted like a very watered-down bean soup with a little bit of tomato paste. Overall the soup had a consistency of a cheap canned soup that was microwaved and served in a nice plate. It was very far off from the home-made tomato soup.

The garlic bread was grilled (which is good) but it was heavily soaked in oil and butter. That's not how you make garlic bread. You can take fresh bread, grill it and rub the garlic into it with light drizzle of olive oil and pinch of salt. That will be ten times better than this soaked in oil sponge.

The steak was really messed up (on the photo provided). We ordered house special steak. So, first of all the meat cut was wrong. It was just a thick dry beef, the kind of stuff that would be okay-ish to add to a stew, definitely not for a steak. The amount of oil was over the top, it was nearly floating in it. I recommend allowing the steak to rest before it is served (do not take all the oil from the pan into a plate). The way steak was cooked is wrong. You are supposed to leave it in the pan for 2-4 minutes on each side (do not move it!). The prawns should not be served with the steak - they just don't belong there! The fact that prawns are still in their shells makes this dish even messier. The amount of spice that was added to the steak was extraordinary. It was a nice meat spice but you are not supposed to drown the steak in it. If the meat for the steak is of a good quality then all you need to do is add salt and offer sauce with it (e.g: peppercorn, mushroom etc). The chips were drowned in oil, spices and steak juices. I saw that chips were fried in the same pan. That's not how chips should be made! Other issues - this place does not accept foreign cards. Clients should really know about it before they start ordering food!

The price for two glasses of wine, two soups, garlic bread and two mains was over 40 euros. In my opinion this is extortionate for the quality of food provided.

In fairness the waitress and the chef did ask us several times whether we were happy with everything. We were in rush to get to Termas da Ferraria so we did not want to participate in long discussions. This is why the feedback is three...

After having spend two weeks on São Miguel, and tasting a lot of different (wonderful) dishes, this restaurant was a very unfortunate experience.

The dishes themselves didn't have too much of a taste, mostly because of the unbalanced ingredients. The pork, for instance, was drenched in red wine "sauce" and so were the fries (who lost their crispy bite and were soaking wet eventually). All tasted like red wine and the meat was cooked to dry as well unfortunately (which made a strange combination together with the drenching of the red wine).

For the staff: no room for thought was almost given. It felt like we had to order immediately as the staff member was waiting beside our table until we were ready to order. Aside from this, the staff pointed out several times that we should take the fish (the more expensive dishes), instead of giving room and some private time to choose something by ourselves (there were a lot of other options too).

As a closure to the staff: we enjoyed our dishes on São Miguel and never gave any feedback to any restaurant, but for this restaurant we figured we would (in order to "strengthen" their dishes). On the comment that the fries were soaking wet, the staff member laughed and denied that this was a "problem". A very unfortunate gesture to have received, but we left it at that. At the payment this particular staff member seemed to joke at his colleagues about us (using the language barrier), leaving an unpleasant energy to us. The bread that was given as an appetizer was also charged, but we didn't asked for this appetizer as we had already ordered different appetizers. This indicates again that this staff was greedy on making the most money out of their customers, even without a certain consent from the customer.

Overall this formed a strange experience at this restaurant and we left with an unfortunate feeling around the dishes that had been eaten and the service given by the staff. It was surely not worth the money spend over there, but more importantly: not worth...

Random Stop, ending in amazing dinner and special dessert made just for us - and a night full of Laughter.

My cousin and I stopped in on our travel around the island back to my house - and this lovely place stands out and is hard to miss between Mosterios and Relva - and trust me you don’t want to!

Wasn’t a busy day, so it was nice to have the staff interaction with their clients. Fortunately walking in to the open concept Kitchen was a nice surprise to see a Familiar Face of an old Friend - Chef V is an amazing chef when inspiration hits :) and you can tell the atmosphere there allows that to flow.

At the end of the evening, Nuno stayed behind to talk to us, and show us around! This man is very proud of his accomplishments as he should be. He has created a beautiful place to enjoy your meal. Spacious and simple styles bring that Modern Zen! Feels like a chill Vibe!

Prices and portions were reasonable and fair. Left with Full Tummy’s, exploding taste buds from start to the amazing finish.

Thank you Nuno for bringing this space to life. Thank you V for the special Dessert

New REVIEW: 09/18/22 I can’t even explain - the mixture of flavours in these plants are out of this world. Chef Vítor kills it again! 💙 didn’t have any any more stuffed peppers and created these tomatoes- and I am not mad at all! It was amazing! My Best friend adored her Salmon and couldn’t get over the flavours as well! Always an amazing staff - Owner is kinda and I love the honesty in the wait for food - 1 Chef, and fresh to order food - if you want fast food go to McDonalds, it’s with the...