Restaurante Markina — Restaurant in Bilbao

We visited Restaurante Markina on our last night in Bilbao, and unfortunately we're a bit disappointed with the experience. We'd walked past it earlier in the day and was recommended it by a local so decided to try it in the evening.

We didn't have a booking but we were able to get a table for 4 quite quickly in the downstairs dining room. There were 2 tables of customers already, so it wasn't too busy luckily. Our waitress was lovely and friendly, and gave us a menu in English and she spoke English too (which is always an appreciated bonus). The overall service was quite slow, as there was only one server for all the tables downstairs, and soon the dining room filled up with more customers. It seemed like the people who were there before us had already been waiting a long time to order / get their food and drinks. She eventually took our order and then I think we waited over an hour for food to come out.

The food itself was good enough, we ordered a couple of starters and mains. The t-bone steak we ordered to share was cooked well although over seasoned with salt. One dish we ordered also didn't arrive, even after we'd asked the waitress for it. The other starters and mains I was told were a bit bland and/or a bit undercooked.

I think we would have had a better experience if we'd spent only 1-2 hours there, instead of 4. I appreciate there was only one server for around 6 tables (and she was running around frantically sometimes) but then they should have more support in the dining room during peak dinner service. It was also overall quite an...

Ridiculous small portions that are totally overpriced compared to rest of the whole country. Our two main dishes were bacalao in two preparations and Entrecot.

The meat was almost inedible, full of cartilage and tasteless, drowned in salt so that you could basically only taste the salt. As a side you got supermarket-bought pickled paprika and very salty fries. For 25 euros this dish is an absolute joke and it was not good.

I didn't try the fish and my partner said it tasted well. But again for 25 euros they serve you two pieces so tiny it is simply absurd. Of that fish they maybe serve you 200 gr tops, which would result in about 3 euros. Add the ingredients for the sauce maybe you are at 4 euros. How to end up at 25 euros is not clear at all.

Very disappointing stay, will certainly not return. We paid more than 80 euros in total. In other regions in Spain you will have better food and not pay more than 40 or maybe 50 euros for two persons. Price / quality relationship is simply abysmal here.

Service and...

My wife and I had dinner here. We ordered the zamburibas, the stewed ox tail, tuna and cheese cake. All, but the tuna was really good. The tuna was over cooked and the skin was not properly descaled. I think I found a scale in almost every bite.

Service was slow. But I could tell my waiter was busy taking care of the entire section by himself, so I gave him grace. HOWEVER, when the check came we noticed we were erroneously charged twice for our dessert. We let the waiter know, and he was bothered by the correction. I pay the bill, and the waiter threw the receipt at me. That was incredibly rude and undeserved.

Granted, I could see he was having a rough night. There were large parties downstairs with complicated orders. But I did not speak or act in any way to deserve this type of treatment.

I’m trying to be objective here. I have dined in Bilbao and in the rest of the Basque, this dining experience...