Aqua - Restaurant & Bar — Restaurant in Vila Nova de Gaia

This is a rare occurrence... Originally I gave a 5 star review and for the first time I have changed s review...

Having been there yesterday arriving around 5pm, started off ok. One lone amazing waitress was running the show alone. But she managed with a smile on her face. Eventually help arrived but that's also when things went south...

Food took an hour and it was not overly busy but regardless we waited patiently absorbing the view. When the food arrived, the prawn and calamari espetada was, well, shocking... The prawns were dirty! How can you not clean seafood! We asked nicely to have the meal replaced and a calamari dish gets slammed on the table by "mister sarcastic"... Grateful we start to eat to find not even the calamari was clean! They still had the pen inside (plastic looking spine)... Again tried to get the attention of anyone. Finally he came and told us bashfully "that's how it is" snatched the plates away and told me to come inside and pay!

I am in the hospitality industry and understand logistics of running an establishment like this and toxic staff is a problem... the general "I don't care" attitude will bring the reputation down fast and hard! I used to refer many people to Aqus from my restaurant. This will never ever happen again! Nor will I return! Sad. You guys have a great location and some excellent staff, but the weights are dragging the boat down...

Check your staff and control quality of what comes out of your kitchen as it is not...

Great view, great interior and deck. Good for drinks with friends and maybe even dessert/ice-cream. Went there today for lunch and it was terrible. They had one waitress serving a deck wity more than 10 tables over lunch time so service was slow. My squid was prepared without garlic or lemon or any kind of seasoning? Not sure if this is just the boring way portuguese people cook or if they messed up because I heard the table next to me also complain about the squid. I ordered chicken with rice and chips for my kids and the rice was dry and hard, as if it had been scraped off the sides of a pot that had been standing out the whole day and too little for even one person. I feel like they didn't feel like cooking fresh rice so they just scraped together what they could find out of an empty pot and served it to us. Asked for ketchup and lemon slices that took a long time to come, so long that I got up and went to get it myself. I see there are many good reviews for this restaurant so I don't know if I just came at a bad time or if standards here are low. I am very disappointed because the location is perfect but the food was boring...

Location 5, Food 4, Female Service 5, Male Service 0 We went twice to that place. First time we were served by female waitresses. Very helpful, very friendly, the food was tasty and good value, great desserts we had such a lovely evening. Therefore we went there again. The second visit was just awful due to the service. Our water was a male tall dark blond guy. He made us feel so unwelcome. We spent only 30€, eventhough we were willing to spend double of that. We just never got asked for more food, drinks, dessert. We had to order our drinks at the bar where the guys weren't happy about it either. The male stuff has a very unfriendly and annoyed attitude. It's a shame for the stuff who works in the kitchen and doing a really good job. I usually only write reviews if there is something good to say. And I always treat the stuff very polite, friendly and tip at least 10% since that's the only way a GUEST...