Restaurante Mares Bravas — Restaurant in Cartagena

Walked in as a group of 3 and stood at the front to read the menu. Staff all around didn't acknowledge us, but as it was a little busy, this was understandable. We were happy with the menu so moved to the front and waited to be seated and were totally ignored by the 8+ staff standing around. It was busy, but we could see free tables for 4 and 2(that could easily have a chair added). After being ignored for 5 minutes I approached a waiter and asked if they had a table for 3. The guy gruffly said "one moment" while looking away from me then proceeded to ignore us for 10 minutes as we stood there. He was not doing anything important. We were further ignored by the other 7 staff for another 15 minutes. Two other groups of Spanish people turned up and were seated straight away at tables that didn't appear to have been booked before-hand. Still standing at the front, I asked another waiter if we could be seated. I got a shrug and one word in Spanish in return as he walked away to take a table's order. After wasting almost 30 minutes standing there we left. What a waste of time. Paella looked terrible and smelled like spoiled fish anyway. Worst service I've experienced in...

English below! Escribo primero en Español, para que los camareros puedan entender tambien, seguro que el Ingles no lo dominan mucho. No he conocido gente más racista y xenófoba que los camareros de Mares Bravas. Aunque yo y mi novio trabajamos y vivimos aquí en España, creo que vieron en nuestras caras que no somos españoles, y aunque teníamos reserva, cuando llegó el momento de sentarnos, escuché a los camareros hablar entre ellos, uno diciéndole al otro en español 'ponlos en la última mesa porque son extranjeros'. Lo seguimos y nos sentamos. Le pregunté en español si podíamos cambiarnos de mesa (había 3 o 4 libres) y también por qué su compañero le había dicho que nos sentara allí porque éramos extranjeros. Primero dijo que no se podía cambiar de mesa. Después de 20 minutos sin tomarnos nota, se acercó y nos dijo que podíamos cambiarnos a otra mesa de delante. Nos cambiamos y pedimos comida y bebida. Pedimos paella porque todas las mesas españolas de alrededor tenían la paellera normal, que tenía buena pinta, y queríamos probarla. El camarero me dijo que la paella solo se sirve en platos, no en la paellera (aunque la gente de alrededor tenía paelleras grandes y pequeñas). Nos trajo dos platos de paella y seguro que eran restos de paella de las paelleras de las otras mesas. Al mirar a mi alrededor, me di cuenta de que solo los extranjeros tenían los platos de paella, mientras que los españoles tenían las paelleras. Así que, aunque pagamos la comida por igual, nos dieron sobras. Pedimos la cuenta 5 veces y nos la trajeron a los 30 minutos. ¡Xenófobos, xenófobos, xenófobos! ¡Deberían despedirlos! ¡Aléjense de este lugar!

—— ENG

I'm writing in Spanish first, so the waiters can understand as well; I'm sure they don't speak much English. I've never met more racist and xenophobic people than the waiters at Mares Bravas. Although my boyfriend and I work and live here in Spain, I think they saw from our faces that we weren't Spanish. And even though we had a reservation, when it was time to sit down, I heard the waiters talking to each other in Spanish, one telling the other in Spanish, "Put them at the last table because they're foreigners." . We followed him and sat down and then I asked in spanish if we can change to another table (3-4 of them being free), and I also asked him why did his colleague tell him to sat us here because we're foreigners. first he said it's not possible to move tables. after 20 minutes of not taking our order, he came to the table and told us we can move to another table in the front. We moved and asked for drinks and food. We ordered paella because every spanish table around us had the normal paella pan that looked good and we wanted to try it. The waiter told me paella comes only on plates, not in the pan (even though people around us had small and big pans). He brought us 2 plates of paella and I can bet it's leftover paella from the pans of the other tables. as I looked around, I realised only foreigners had the 'paella plates', spanish people had the pans. So even though we are paying for food equally, we get leftovers. We asked for the bill 5 times and they brought it after 30 minutes. Xenofobic, xenofobic, xenofobic. They should be fired! Do yourself a favour and stay away...

The place was packed when we walked by but we were lucky to get a vacant table for 2 pax. We ordered Asiatico coffee and asked for recommendation on desserts which was told their strawberry cheesecake is home made. Trusted their advice and ordered cheesecake but upon arrival we were completely disappointed (check out pics to find out why). To give the benefit of doubt, we ordered second dessert i.e. Abuelo cake (which was basically layered chocolate cake) and it was equally as bad, texture felt like it was leftovers of atleast 3 days old. How can something as simple as chocolate cake go wrong? Asiatico coffee was heavy on liquor with barely coffee taste. Had to request for the bill 4 times, took almost 30 mins before we could finally pay and leave. On top of all these, their waiter were smoking just next to our table where smoke was smacking right on our faces. We would have considered to return to have lunch however this brief yet awful experience was enough to change our mind. Besides the strategic location next to the beautiful beach; there's nothing worth...