Douro Velho — Restaurant in Vila Nova de Gaia

Charging my review after few years and leaving the old review to compare:

Unfortunately, what started as a promising experience turned into a huge disappointment due to the terrible service.

After a warm welcome and a great start with delicious starters — prawns, olives, bolinhos de bacalhau, red wine, Port wine, and beers — things quickly went downhill. As the evening progressed, beers started taking a long time to arrive, and our main courses took over 1 hour and 30 minutes to be served.

When we politely asked the waiter about the delay with the tap beers, he turned his back on us and rudely complained, which was completely uncalled for. After such a long wait, we decided to cancel the main dishes — and only then did they suddenly start arriving, with the exception of the francesinha. Unfortunately, everything came out cold.

To make matters worse, the manager, who was initially speaking with us, turned his back and walked away without offering any explanation — and never returned.

It’s a shame because the food was genuinely fantastic, the location is lovely, and the initial service was friendly. But the way things were handled afterward was unprofessional and unacceptable. No matter how good the food is, such poor service completely ruins the experience.

Would love to return for the food, but not unless major improvements are made in customer service.

(Old) Located in the just beside the river D’ouro with a very nice atmosphere. A little more expensive than other places in Porto, but in average of the other restaurants placed “na Ribeira”. We were very well welcomed and due to the amount of people the manager told us that delays would be expected. All good related to that, only the drinks could come quickly. Ordered the famous “francesinha” which was huge and delicious. Sure I would come back, spent a...

AMERICAN POCs, AVOID THIS PLACE LIKE THE PLAGUE.

If I could give 0.5 stars I would. We've been sitting in the photographed state (empty glasses, empty bottle, filthy table) for just over 1 hour since we asked for the check. It's 7:30 on a Tuesday in late May (Memorial Day weekend in The States) and there seems to be only one server working because the management seems to think that even in amazing weather like today it's appropriate for 3/4 of the staff to dine for an extended period of time indoors in clear view of the unattended patrons.

We ordered bread that never came but were (attempted to be) charged for. My companion ordered fish that was undercooked with potatoes that were not warm.

On top of the unforgivable lack of attention, what I can only assume was the manager made a point to give excessive attention to a straight white Brit couple next to us that arrived later than us and left sooner than us because he made a point to make sure that their check came out even after we asked for ours. He even treated them to Port wine for their inconvenience. When we followed up with him about our check we were ignored and he proceeded to go feed pigeons. The only person that treated us with any level of respect or consideration was another darker skinned Brazilian employee that wasn't even our server, and appeared to be a bus boy.

Overall, quite possibly the worst international service and dining experience...

We went here this evening, was between here and a restraunt 2 doors down. We regretted our choice quite quickly. Service was slow and inattentive. We watched 1 table get up and leave, then their food arrived as the were leaving. Another table only had half their food and had to complain.

We were given drinks and starters fine, however our food took over 45 minutes to come and was freezing cold when it arrived. My partner complained and as it was late and we'd had to wait so long, we didn't want the food. When we complained my partner asked for drinks to be removed from the bill as we didn't have the chance to finish them.

The waitress asked her "boss" and he came out and refused. He told us that we could see his restraunt was big and he couldn't provide the service. My partner said he wasn't paying for the drinks, to which the "boss" said well you want to wait 45 minutes for the police to come?

When we asked who the manager was, we were told he wasn't there and that he was the oldest in the room. He said sometimes he's manager sometimes he's not and that the manager wasn't there, theres nothing he could do except the take off the returned food. He said he knew they couldn't provide the service but that wasn't his fault.

Really poor service. Didnt get to eat the food except a sausage board starter that was actually more ham, olives and raisins. Tourist...