Siete Mares Santa Marta — Restaurant in Santa Marta

I was there about about an hour ago. Was going to formally ask the Colombian woman ive been dating to be in a relationship ( did not happen, the restaurante ruined everything) . Its a traditional Colombian thing. Anyways i made a reservation for 5:30pm, got there early, was seated. It started raining, then it rained harder and soaked our appetizers. Did they replace the apps? Nope. We got movéd farther back, then another time we got sat at a a long table by a little group of loud drunks by the bar... Real romántic. One of which was a couple of Brit Kids and the male was chainsmoking at the table or within a meter of it. Gross, unsanitary, none of the staff stopped it. First time i had seen that in years. I dont blame staff for weather, i blame an open air establishment for not having a Way to keep that weather out. Im from Florida, we get a lot of storms, this is Just incompetent business. I told the manager and waitress to cancel the rest of my order this is ridículo , i wanted to go. They both looked me in the eye and said yes. Then they brought the rest of my order out. Braindead i guess. I paid around 290k, but never again. Oh, the waitress could not figure out how a debit card worked, so I paid in Cash... Then had the nerve to ask if that included a tip... Why not, you cant operate a debit card, youre definitely going to have a hard life. I checked with my bank... It works and theres...

This is the first time I’ve had such mixed feelings about a restaurant.

The good: The food was AMAZING—easily the best we had in our 10 days in Santa Marta. Every dish was delicious, from the fish and seafood to the chicken and drinks. It felt like a MasterChef experience with exquisite, beautifully presented plates. I’d give the food 10 stars if I could.

The atmosphere was also fantastic. The location is perfect, with good music, a sea breeze, and gorgeous modern-tropical decor.

The bad: The service was a major letdown. I had to repeatedly ask for basic things—salt (3 times), a teaspoon for my kid (2 times), an extra plate (2 times), a beer (2 times), and ice (3 times with multiple waiters). It was frustrating and took away from the overall experience.

In Santa Marta, tipping is optional, but I was tipping at all the restaurants I visited as a courtesy, even though my Colombian friends often asked to have the tip removed from the bill. In this restaurant, however, the service was so poor that I decided to ask for the tip to be removed. After that, the staff became noticeably unfriendly. The person handling the credit card didn’t say a word, gave us a dirty look, and didn’t even thank us for visiting.

I strongly suggest the owner of this restaurant to make sure the staff gets trained on customer service and courtesy ASAP. This will make this place one of the best in...

Draft beer, surprisingly excellent pad Thai, micheladas con tamarindo. The music is electronic, as compared to the more local Sistema Solar downstairs. I was expecting disappointment ordering a pad Thai in Colombia but I’m so glad I risked it. The noodles were perfectly cooked, not too hard not too soft. The variety of seafoods was fine. If they had an option to pay more for a langostino version, I would certainly have paid more, my only complaint was that there was too much soy sauce flavor in the first bite. Pad Thai doesn’t have soy sauce. The fish sauce flavor was also too light. And I would recommend they serve it with a hot pepper on the side for friends of the spice, can be any pepper, just has to be hot. The one mussel was a little overcooked. Last note, pad Thai has crunchy textures mixed into the profile, they tried with bell peppers which was ok, but bean sprouts are easy to grow and would go a long long way to nailing the texture wonderfully on this otherwise delicious dish. Glad I risked it. In my opinion, the Caribe Caribe entrada needs to be brightened up somehow, we tried limes and it was OK, but maybe there’s something better.. Dog friendly, but not handicap accessible (staircase). Will definitely be back for cerveza de barril. Dayana was very friendly as well. Send my regards...