The Bridge 1870 — Restaurant in Sabrosa

I recently had a VERY disappointing and maddening experience at the Bridge 1870 that left me questioning the values of this establishment and exposes hatred and bigotry!

My wife and I arrived for dinner, only to be told, “sorry, you have no reservations. You must wait outside and after 45 minutes, we MIGHT be able to seat you - outside please!” Despite the restaurant being about 40% full, my wife was persistent in her request to get a table for us, even outside, to no avail. This was both surprising and frustrating, especially when we later learned from the front desk at the nearby Vintage Hotel that this restaurant doesn't even take reservations! So he fed us a line of BS.

What made the situation even more troubling was that only minutes after being turned away, we met a few strangers none of them had reservations, and had a brief conversation with them. Three white men and two white women) and witnessed them going in and being seated without any issue! This raises some serious concerns about fairness, hospitality, hatred and bigotry. As a Black man from California USA, and with my Asian wife by my side, this I believe is absolute evidence of blatant racism. If I was to go back there, I can’t imagine what might be put into my food.

In 2025, it's disheartening to see that discrimination still exists. This area thrives on tourism, and restaurants should be welcoming to all guests. The owner needs to reevaluate the behavior of their staff, particularly the waiter or manager who turned us away so rudely. I hope this isn’t bread by the own him / herself. Perhaps he / she would like to reply?

I sincerely hope that the Bridge 1870 takes this feedback to heart and works on fostering an inclusive environment for everyone. Until then, I cannot recommend this place to others. No, not a chance. Check out the 1star or 2 star reviews and you would figure it out the owner actually is the person who was rude to their customers. All his replies are defensive and don’t have the spirit of hospitality. So while other restaurants available, don’t come here. Service sucks big time. Also, in his reply to me, he’s told three lies. 1) he does not take reservations, but said since we didn’t have one, we must wait 45 mins 2) he DID NOT say wait until the next table 3) he yelled at us in a loud voice announcing our inadequacies and we can’t eat there. His third lie was that we were told politely. Don’t eat there, you’d be support...

AVOID - this was our first experience of poor service and rudeness during our 12 day trip to Portugal. After visiting cardamho dos presuntos and having an amazing time with excellent service, we were recommended to visit the bridge restaurant by the waiter. Unfortunately we had an awful experience here which really dampened our evening - we wish we went to another restaurant recommended by our Quinta! We were greeted and seated fine. We both chose a potential wine but when tasting it decided it wasn’t to our taste. We then requested a port wine, we were told we won’t be able to try the port first. We found this strange but didn’t see it as a huge issue. We ordered the port anyway and it was lovely. We then ordered our mains - octopus risotto and roast chicken. Both were super salty and after a few bites we felt we weren’t able to ignore how salty it was. We waited for someone to serve us, it took a while to get someone’s attention. We explained it was too salty and the waitress asked if we were done with the dish, we said yes as we couldn’t eat it. No offer to replace or order something else. She then asked if we would like a dessert, after checking the menu we weren’t too keen on anything so asked for the bill. They had charged us full price for the meals and also added an additional charge for the two wines we had tried but decided we didn’t like. They removed this straight away. A man who seemed like front of house came over and asked ‘what is the problem’ we politely explained our dishes were too salty and we weren’t able to eat or enjoy them so they were returned. He rudely replied that we should have mentioned this earlier and we had eaten half the dish (not true). We didn’t like the attitude or confrontation so said we are happy to pay but didn’t appreciate the rude response. He walked off with no apology. No offer to rectify the issue with our meal. Left super dehydrated and hungry....

Unfortunately, a disappointing experience:

We were looking forward to dining here, but unfortunately our experience did not live up to expectations. A few key issues stood out: Menu inconsistency: The menu advertised online was not what the restaurant actually offered. Once seated, we were told that at least five main courses—including octopus, shrimp, and most fish options—were unavailable, leaving us with very limited choices. Slow service and unfair prioritization: We were the first to arrive when the restaurant opened, yet our food took 65 minutes to be served. Meanwhile, several other tables (mostly locals) received their meals—including shrimp risotto, which we were told wasn’t available. It felt as though the kitchen prioritized local customers over tourists. Poor wine knowledge: The wine list was limited, and when we asked what wine we were being served, the answer was simply “the bottle with the orange label over there”—with no description of the wine type or tasting notes. Given we were dining in the Douro Valley, this was particularly disappointing.

Perhaps locals have a different experience, but as tourists, we left underwhelmed and wouldn’t...