The Wine Box — Restaurant in Porto

TLDR: our waiter was rude/unprofessional (he was the worst waiter we had during our entire trip in Portugal) and our ~€30 ribeye steak took 40 minutes and was undercooked, even after we sent it back to the kitchen to be cooked again.

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We ordered the ribeye steak along with 3 other dishes and 2 glasses of wine. All the other dishes came out in a reasonably timely manner (

Comfortably the worst experience in hospitality I have ever had. I have never left anything other than a good restaurant review, but this experience has left me fuming.

So to start... In spite of the fact that staff’s uniform is casual, I instantly felt like I wasn’t welcome as I entered the door as I myself and my girlfriend were also in casual attire. Nonetheless pleased at being seated in an area where the wines are displayed, I asked the waiter with a smile if he could provide a wine list so we could pick a good bottle to build our meal around (we are pretty backwards customers and prefer to select our food to fit the wine, this I will admit). I was told we would be sent a wine specialist straight away.

The waiter returned ten minutes later to take our food order. We had not spoken to anyone about wine. We decided to select 3 dishes to share in the hope that we could speak to said wine specialist and still get that special bottle to match the food (we had to remind the waiter that we had asked for assistance in wine as we sat down).

Eventually a wine specialist came to our table. He produced a wine which was indeed a good selection. I have since googled the wine and the relevant vintage, and found that the retail price of the wine is circa 20 euros, and given that the wine was offered to us at 45 euros, I am still happy at paying that price given that I understand on trade margins and that wine is always used to bolster the income of restaurants that have to pay huge overheads and multiple staff. I get this. To facilitate a good customer experience. Except...

The food was terrible. A plate of garlic prawns was over cooked and disappointing. At this point, we genuinely, genuinely had the discussion of whether we should or shouldn’t mention anything, given that we have that worst of English traits in that we do not like to cause a fuss. We decided we would only say something if they asked - and when they did, I mentioned that to my liking they were overcooked. We didn’t see that waitress again. It is a strange thing to be asked your opinion in a restaurant when it clearly does not matter.

We also had octopus that was bland and had a strange chalky texture, and cod and olive paste on toast which had bones in and was overly salty.

We were asked twice more how our food was, to which we replied it was disappointing, until finally a waiter admitted to us that ‘the strength of the restaurant was the small dishes served on bread, and the wine’.

We were not offered any apology.

We paid a bill of around 80 euros and left, devoid of any energy to argue.

This may well have been an incredibly off night, or there may well be big changes that this restaurant is going through. It is a hard industry and I totally understand the difficulties this establishment may be going through. But I would urge anyone that wants to do anything other than sample this venues undoubtedly good wine selection with anything other than some bread, to consider the many other places on offer in this wonderful city for food and drink.

This was our first night in Porto, I’m sure we will have many...

Run don’t walk away from this terrible establishment. We arrived late in the evening and only got a table because the people before us left within 5 minutes of being seated and honestly I wish we had done the same.

The visit started off by being handed an iPad to order - menu was in multiple languages so most everyone could read the description of each plate - only the descriptions literally only included the name of the meal and no information about its contents.

When you decided what you want then you place the order … except you can’t cause you need a password, and you can’t order wine without a server. Server finally came over after we requested help on the iPad and placed our food order. Wine was more difficult. There was a full page of Portuguese wines with the only descriptions being full body… not knowing Portuguese wines and not having anyone to ask due to the iPad ordering I used my phone to look some up. When we decided on one and ordered we were told this one is very fruity and not dry - we then proceeded to ask about other wines and were told about 4 that the only description we got was “dry” when I tried to inquire about wines from other regions my server said I only tell you about these wines. Uhhhhhh okay. So I’m supposed to pick one of the 4 he said we’re dry of the 20 or so on the page with literally know other information or recs. I then asked for a few minutes to look a few of the wines up as he was no help. Next another server comes over and says can I help you with wine because your food is already ready we said yes, excited for the help - she simply said you like dry and you want the strongest wine she proceeded to literally just bring us the highest alcohol wine and seemed offended when we didn’t like it She then brought the original wine I had thought to pick and said the previous server was wrong in his description - she then brings a bottle and opens it (this wine is sold in a flight and by the glass so I assume she has one open) we don’t like the wine and she clearly and immediately can tell by our faces and by us literally saying we don’t like it - instead of taking the wine away she Insists she opened the bottle because we wanted to try it and what is she supposed to do with it now. I literally asked her “don’t you sell it by the glass” - answer: yes. Also asked her did you have another bottle open. Answer: yes. Well why didn’t you let us taste the open bottle? She stood there saying it’s our choice, but I opened for you. But I know you don’t like. But I opened for you. I literally have never experienced this before. Beyond that food was mediocre at best. And the $9 asparagus plate had literally 5 pieces in it - come on guys do better - I literally have zero idea how this place has so many...