Cozinha Cabral — Restaurant in Porto

I am trying to be as balanced as I can, in view of the disappointing experience our group had last night. Aesthetically, the restaurant is lovely. Our waitress, Juliana was delightful.

Normally, when I go to a restaurant, I am torn by three or four dishes that I would like to try. Here, I was choosing from the best of a bad bunch. If my wife and I had been on our own, we would have left, but you know what it is like with group dynamics, it would have taken ages to find somewhere else, so We placed our order at 8:30. Mine and two others first choice was unavailable, Deborah asked for a salad for the first course, but for some bizarre reason known to only himself, chef was not prepared to create a smaller version of the main course, as apparently it can’t be done, so she went without a starter. When food is slow to arrive, patrons drink more. By 9:30 small portions arrived and those that should have been hot was tepid at least.

The main courses arrived at 10:00. Mine was over cooked and tepid, Charles had a cold deer, the portions were far from generous and what should have been the easiest dish to prepare, the salad, arrived after everybody else was half way through their meal.

The chef has no right to award himself that title as I wouldn’t have dished up what he prepared at home.

The management are cowards. Hiding away, whilst allowing the waitresses to field the complaints. There were no offers to reduce the bill, just excuses that they were prioritising smaller tables than us and I am sorry, that just doesn’t wash.

They have been open just one week, so there may have been teething problems. Then tell us and give us the option to eat elsewhere. You do not take money from people if you cannot provide a service.

So, what would need to change before I would recommend this place.

The Chef The Menu The Managements visibility

If these things don’t change, this restaurant is...

I try to be fair, but to be honest, it's tough with this place. Service was great. No issues there. But the food is such a let down.

The menu lacked a lot of inspiration but I went for the 'game pie', which at €15 you'd think you were in for a hearty meal. Oh no. It wasn't even a pie. More a slop of meat (containing various bones) encircled in pastry (No base, not a pie!) With a dressed leaf salad on the side. No carbs to be found. This was no large pie either, you see larger at any chip shop. For 10x cheaper. And arguably just as tasty. My girlfriend liked her Sea Bass, but if you were hungry that would be a disappointment.

The worst was the desert. We decided to share a chocolate and walnut cake with pear ice cream. Nothing we received matched this. The 'ice cream' was now a sorbet. Perhaps it had started out life as an ice cream but has likely melted and been refrozen. Which leaves a tasteless mush of ice crystals with no taste.... But the colour of a pear I guess. The cake was just a disaster. Smaller than an espresso cup without a hint of walnut. And a faint taste of chocolate one would get with cocoa powder. For €6.50. To their credit the waitress was absolutely fine with me refusing to pay for it, I'm sure they are embarrassed to serve that as well. Even with that taken off the bill it was still €50 with a beer and a wine!

There is air conditioning, but they're not bothered to turn It on, even during the hottest week in years...

Stay clear, we left hungry and had a far better meal the previous night for less money. Absolute...

We dropped into the restaurant completely by accident as it was a rainy night in Porto and we were unaware that a lot of the restaurants were closed on Sunday nights. Tourists don’t have a lot of options, so we were happy to scoop one of the last tables at about 7:30 pm.

The waiters in this restaurant are remarkably good. There are only two who are taking care of all the tables and they do a good job of keeping up with the demand. Service never seemed to lag and they were always upbeat and happy.

We started off with the croquettes which were a revelation if you’ve had them elsewhere in Porto. These tiny, bite sized morsels were phenomenal. We had two of the meat and two of the vegetarian croquettes. The only regret was ordering only four instead of eight. Won’t do that again.

For our dinner we decided to go full on portuguese. My wife had the bacalhau à brás which was excellent. I found Francesinha under the snack menu. This was anything but a snack. If you’ve never had it, this is a dish that is designed to ensure that you don’t go home hungry. I won’t rave about it, but if you want to try this traditional Porto dish, this is probably a good place to give it a try.

Overall, a very nice evening, good food and service. Not much more you can ask for.

Our dinner choice was rewarded when the staff came running out after us when my wife left her purse behind at the table. Many thanks!

Dinner for two including sangria and a glass of red wine was 40 €...