El Carnicero 1993 — Restaurant in Estepona

All week we’ve really looking forward to eating at El Carnicero following the glowing reviews. In fact when we arrived yesterday around 6:45pm without a reservation we were told it was fully booked. So we booked for the following evening, with increased anticipation. A great reception and lovely atmosphere can make a diner forgive almost anything, even mediocre food. Alas the welcome was luke warm, the service (despite only 4 or 5 tables sat in this large establishment) was non attentive, and the food overall was disappointing. Chorizo was tasty… but chicken wings had more breaded coating than chicken, & were very dry. The salmon with dill cream was nothing special. The slow cooked beef hot pot was thin, lacked that meaty seasoned flavour you would expect, & the meat was tough. The requested medium entrecôte ribeye steak came partly rare, & had lots of unrendered fat. But at least the accompanying peppercorn sauce was delicious. Based on the meal we just had we didn’t want to try the homemade desserts, so paid up & left. Such a shame as we’ve been saving this visit till the end of our stay in the area. Even a simple hello from the person we believe was the owner would have softened us a little, but we were not acknowledged by her even as we excited.

A disappointing end to our holiday, but at least we have the lovely memory of the nearby restaurant Bodeguita Santa Maria, which we visited twice during our stay. Warm, attentive, food lovingly prepared & served with pride. El Carnicero can learn a lot from that little...

I will start by saying that I will give El Carnicero a second chance, I think they had a bad night but have potential. It seems they had a sudden influx of visitors and the staff were overwhelmed. We booked outside but it was too cold and asked if we could move inside. This request had a frosty reception from Madame (she was French I think) in charge but they eventually accommodated us. The atmosphere was lovely inside and the service prompt and friendly. Starters were delicious and generous. But mains were a disaster. We ordered four steaks. Should have been a safe bet in a meat restaurant. But they arrived quite randomly cooked. My medium rare ribeye was perfect and delicious. But the other medium ribeye was terribly overcooked, grey and tough. The two fillets ordered medium arrived so rare one had to be sent back and my wife gamely ate hers while feeding me the blue bits. The set menu was 24 euro and we felt good value (ribeyes were an extra 5 euro) . In the end 150 euro for four without booze. On the night it could have been better and maybe at a less busy time...

Hello!

Me and my 2 friends just visited this restaurant and were directly pleased by the nice atmosphere in the restaurant. When we sat down and started ordering drinks it took about 10 minutes for us to receive them, later on, the waiter gave us bread and some sauces that we thought was included in the restaurant visit since we never ordered it, but then we got charged €7 for it, what the flip?!

Later we got our starters and the salmon just tasted like it was filled with water and the charcuterie board did not taste anything at all.

When we got our main dishes, which was supposed to be medium rare entrecôte, it was well done and did not taste like anything. Even the fries was tasteless

The dessert were okay, but the cheesecake tasted just like butter and the tiramisu felt like it was store bought.

Even though we got the wrong temperature on the steak and had to wait for a new one, we never got compensated...