Makako Estepona — Restaurant in Estepona

We have visited the restaurant many times previously and stayed in the hotel (El Pilar) numerous times over the last 1.5 years whilst we were waiting for our property to be built. How we were treated after spending a lot of money on taking out our family of seven was rude and inconsistent, resulting in a heated conversation with the manager named Monica. She had no interest in listening to our valid points and instead wanted to get across her point . The experience unfolded as follows: Our booking was for 7.30pm & we understood we had 2.5 hours of allotted time for our table. We had pre-dinner drinks in the rooftop bar with our family and subsequently advised the restaurant we would be arriving a little later after finishing drinks, which they advised was no problem but we would still have our 2.5 hours from 7.30pm. We sat down for dinner at 8pm & ordered our food/drinks etc. The waitress appeared pleasant and the only minor problem was we ordered a bottle of wine with two glasses but instead received two glasses of wine, which we queried. She apologised as her understanding was we wanted two glasses. This wasn’t a problem as we were okay to order another glass of wine to finish our dinner. We all enjoyed our dinner and were given dessert menus at 9.25pm. We subsequently ordered our desserts at 9.35pm & watched the waitress being approached by Monica, the manager. Our waitress then returned to our table and removed our dessert spoons and told us we couldn’t have dessert or the second glass of wine as we didn’t have time due to our time slot expiring at 10pm. We were confused and flabbergasted at their approach as to what had been an enjoyable evening with our family. We questioned why we were NOT allowed dessert or another wine and were told we didn’t have enough time even though we had 25 minutes remaining!!! The waitress removed the spoons and walked away leaving us angry and in disbelief. We then tried to explain we had enough time to enjoy the remaining time we had and were confused as to why they were refusing to serve us dessert. The waitress walked away shaking her head, which further inflamed the situation. When she realised we had 25 mins left, she then U-turned and said we could have our glass of wine and ONLY one of the desserts (unbelievable). This insult resulted in a heated conversation and a request to speak to Monica, the Manager. Monica didn’t listen to our view of what had just happened; she instead repeatedly spoke over us and disagreed with what happened. She said she merely reminded her waitress we only had 25 mins left and didn’t realise her waitress stopped us from ordering. Monica simply didn’t deal with our complaint or look after us in any shape or form, and the icing on the cake at 10.01pm when they delivered our bill for £500 was to offer us coffees for the bad experience. This offer for coffees was disgusting based on the timeline constraint forced upon us and a complete CONTRADICTION. We’ve dined in many fine restaurants around the world and have never written any reviews but felt so strongly about how badly we were treated and felt the need to voice this...

Unfortunately quite disappointed after our visit here, which was a big shame considering the great ratings and good things we heard prior to coming.

Drinks were nice, though not all wines were available which would have been nice to know prior to ordering (ie notifying customers x,y,z are not available today on presentation of the wine menu)

Dynamite prawns are 10/10, really impressive. But our other starter dish (tuna tartare) was completely forgotten, which was ironic because it probably involved the least cooking. It was brought out after everyone else had finished their starter and the mains were brought out almost immediately after the delayed starter was eaten which didn’t really work timing-wise. Tartare was OK, expected more of a restaurant offering sushi.

The main was where we were disappointed - the beef “rendang” was very poor with little to no flavour. It was also advertised as “rendang with seasonal vegetables and jasmine rice”; 0 vegetables accompanied and when asked, we were met with “the vegetables are in the sauce” which is a bit ridiculous…don’t specify it on the menu like that grouped with an accompaniment of rice - the rice was hardly in the sauce…irrespective of this (menu phrasing should be fixed), the curry tasted absolutely nothing like a rendang, there was no sweetness, no deep flavour (no flavour at all really except for “stewed” beef)

Would come back for drinks and the prawns, not for a...

Had booked 3 weeks in advanced. Was emailed, called and WhatsApp all in the lead up, up to 45mins before our booking to confirm we wanted it. Felt very much like they didnt want us to come (we had a baby sleeping in a pram) Cocktails were delicious, setting was gorgeous. Starters arrived within 5 mins of ordering, we had pork belly tacos and gyoza, had some pieces of cartilage in one taco which was a shame as the flavours were lovely. When plates cleared raised it, you d server clearly was trained on how to deal with it (just a apology would suffice) she went to discuss with the chef, offered her the plate to take, she said he said it's cartilage and it's normal/expected. I would disagree. Yes it can happen, but should not be expected. Mains arrived very quickly too, pad Thai and beef curry. Pad Thai was too sweet for me, but the beef was delicious. Bit of a hit and miss meal overall. Lots of servers around but no one seemingly checking on whether you're happy with the food etc. Felt very much just keen to turn over the tables. Our meal was completed within 1 hour! When bill arrived, raised issue with pork again so was removed which was appreciated. Would go back for drinks and the view, but 100s of better dining experiences available within...