Restaurante El Patio II — Restaurant in Los Alcázares

Not the Review I Expected to Leave

After visiting Los Alcázares for over 14 years, we had never tried El Patio — despite it being on our list. Since it was my birthday, we thought it would be a nice treat to finally eat there.

Things started off well. We were seated without a reservation, and our server even brought over an extra table to give us more room for drinks and bread. Unfortunately, things quickly went downhill.

Our original server, who was polite, was suddenly and quite rudely replaced by an older server who came to take our order. He didn’t ask how we wanted our steaks cooked or which of the two sauce options we preferred. As he turned to leave, we had to stop him to specify how we wanted our steaks done — as anyone would. We also had to tell him which sauces we wanted since he hadn’t asked. He wrote nothing down, which I understand some experienced staff do, but it still made me uneasy.

When the food arrived, two of the three steaks were correct. The third — a BBQ fillet with blue cheese sauce — came without the sauce. We called over the original server, who responded with a rude attitude, asking if we had ordered the sauce with the other server. When we tried to explain what had happened, he curtly replied that we should have ordered it when placing the order — which, of course, we had tried to do.

After we finished eating, our empty glasses sat untouched for 30–35 minutes before anyone cleared the table. When it was finally cleared, a dessert menu was thrown in front of me without a word — even though we hadn’t asked for one. At no point were we asked if we wanted another drink, which we didn’t, but it would’ve been nice to be asked.

When the server returned and asked for our dessert order, we said we only wanted the bill. He grunted and walked away. About 10–15 minutes later, the bill arrived — and it didn’t look right. It seemed very expensive, and since it was in Spanish, I used Google Translate to check. Sure enough, it was wildly incorrect.

I flagged down the original server, but once again, he was waved away by the older one. Another 10–15 minutes passed before the corrected bill arrived, brought over by a female staff member and a card machine. I asked for a moment to double-check the bill, and she rolled her eyes and stormed off. She returned a few minutes later, and we paid — without leaving a tip, probably for the first time ever.

To be fair, the food was good, though I personally think the steak at the lounge down on Rio Nalon is better. But the service? Easily one of the worst experiences I’ve had — especially in Los Alcázares.

We will...

I took my parents here for their wedding anniversary dinner and was extremely disappointed. I had high hopes as this place was given high praise from many friends and people online.

Let's start with the food.

Firstly, the salad was completely out of order. It was 80% onion and little to no lettuce, apart from the lettuce stalk that is. We did complain and it was taken off the bill with no hassle since it was poor quality.

The chips were made in bad used oil and looked worse then some fast food chips.

The chipirone batter overwhelmed the taste of the baby squid and I didn't enjoy it and I usually adore baby squid.

The steak was a very big fat let down (sorry for the pun!). It looked very nice but unfortunately had an excessive amount of fat. We took the fat home for our dog and it weighed just over 400grams in a steak of 1.1 kg! The steak was also tasteless even though from Galicia. We had to put a lot of salt on it and even then they only gave us three small paper packets. A couple of days before we ate at a steak house in Cabo Roig and the food was far superior in every way.

On to the service. It was not very good either. We felt very rushed the entire time and the staff weren't very patient. My mother ordered a glass of wine and the server poured it very quickly making it splatter on the table and run down the side of the glass.

After we finished our meal they asked if we wanted desserts and we declined, the server immediately asked if we wanted the bill despite my mother having a full glass of wine left.

Some good sides to this place would be the nice look and the space you had to eat.

Overall I would not recommend this place as it left me very disappointed and with a feeling of being completely ripped off! Sorry...

It's fair to say that we have visited on better days. This visit was for lunch on Dec 25th. The general ambience was, as always excellent. Two of the people serving us were professional, friendly and helpful. One just didn't want to be there on Christmas day. We ordered Cava to start with our Calamari Romana. The Cava was fine but the batter was soggy and the calamari overcooked . We then had a selection of steaks - filet, angus and lamb chops. The meat was excellent and the accompanying rioja, perfect. Overall, for a restaurant that normally scores 8/9 out of ten, today was a 7. Additional visit April 2023. The meat produce remains of a high quality but I'm afraid that's where the good news stops. The service is now perfunctory with no attempt to advise or assist. The menus we had were dirty and we had to ask for a wine list and whether there were any vegetables. The servers shout to each other as they work giving the place all the ambience of a works canteen. I chose one of the most expensive cuts of meat at around 50 euros and requested it be cooked medium which was confirmed by the server using a photograph. The result was a 'blue' steak as shown below. It's no good the management responding, 'You should have told us...we would cook it more..' Having to do that ruins a meal - you end up eating out of sync with your fellow diners, the server gets upset as does the chef. This restaurant has been operating for nearly 40 years so by now, they should know how to cook a steak as requested. My feeling is El Patio is resting on its laurels from previous years. Some...