Cambara — Restaurant in Málaga

Unacceptable Experience at Cambara Restaurant. Avoid at All Costs!

Tonight I had an extremely unpleasant experience at Cambara Restaurant in Málaga, and I cannot stress enough how disappointing the entire evening was.

We arrived around 8 pm and ordered a couple of glasses of wine and a bottle of water. We waited nearly an hour and a half for the water alone. When I politely mentioned this to one of the waiters, his response was a dismissive "Yeah yeah," but nothing happened. Another 15 minutes went by before the water finally arrived.

After two hours from our arrival, the food finally showed up – a seafood paella. The portion was underwhelming, with very little seafood and an abundance of rice. The taste was mediocre at best, with a slightly bitter flavor that didn’t impress.

However, the real disaster struck less than 10 minutes after we started eating. An umbrella from the restaurant fell directly onto my head and our table, shattering all the glasses, almost cutting us, and spilling the wine and water we had barely touched. Instead of showing concern or rushing to assist, the waiters stood by with little reaction.

I asked to have the remaining paella packed to take home, as we had hardly eaten, but to my disbelief, the waiter started throwing the broken glass directly into the food. When I pointed out that we still wanted to take it home, his shocking response was, “It’s only glass,” as if removing the shards would make it edible. This was completely unacceptable and dangerous!

When I raised the issue of their lack of empathy and the fact that we were seated in the worst possible spot with no shelter from the wind, their response was simply, “It’s not our fault. It’s because of the wind.” No apology, no offer to move us to a safer table or to give us anything else to drink, nothing. The most important thing to them was to pay what we ordered.

The entire experience was extremely unprofessional and upsetting! The service was slow, the food was lackluster, and the staff showed zero concern for their customers' safety or experience. There will definitely be no next time at Cambara. If you're in Málaga, I recommend steering clear...

This was my last meal, and my last night in Malaga. I realize that it was quite late, and their kitchen was closing but they offered to take my food order if I could order on the spot. Honestly I would’ve rather them say they couldn’t do it than receive such horrible service and experience.

I had to order outside on the curb by the host stand with the chef impatiently waiting and telling me to hurry. As a tourist who was visiting Malaga for the first time, I had never been there and didn’t take a detailed look at the menu else than when I checked opening hours on Google. Therefore wasn’t ready to make a decision in the next 30 sec as I quickly flipped through their menu and the chef looked very annoyed.

After hurrying and ordering at least an appetizer and a main to make it worth their time… I was seated and the server rushed over to ask for my drink when I had barely just sat. When I said I needed more time, he rolled his eye and walked off.

Food order came in and looked great, until I had a taste and it felt cold, dry and chewy as if it had been sitting there for a while which I don’t quite understand how… as I just made the order 2 mins earlier.

I came late so I didn’t want to mention anything, I also ordered a drink and a bottle of water… for a total of €45 for one person. The server practically threw the bill in the card holder on the table and walked away… they had charged me for bread which I never receive, and when I mentioned it - he looked frustrated at me.

Note that I have been working in the service industry for many years and I understand the frustration that comes with some difficult clients but I was no where near being difficult or challenging. The restaurant is actually open until 2am but the kitchen closes at midnight. Not sure why they needed to rush me out.

I would’ve liked to spent more as I enjoyed their diverse drink menus but the experience overall made me feel unwelcome as if I was some sort of burden. Definitely not the experience I wanted of my last...

I have celebrated my 40’s in Malaga and booked this place via email. We had to pay the deposit to reserve the table of 16 people, but everything went smoothly. When arrived we were very welcome by the staff, and we were late since because of the hard time finding taxis to get to the Malaga city centre. Staff were professional and waited for us all to arrive patiently. Our waiter for the night was Ernesto, who was absolutely amazing and since he works only two weeks in this restaurant he is surprisingly know everything on the menu, recommended the best drinks and food, so everyone was really happy. The vibe at the restaurant is super chilled and they had a DJ, but maybe if music would be louder everyone could hear him, but he was playing a nice music, so every time we went to the bathrooms we enjoyed the nice beats. Food - 10 out of 10. And I’m the person who is not too crazy about the food, but even I said wow some of the dishes honestly was the best I’ve ever had, for example shrimps (we came back the second day all group and few of us had shrimps instead of starter ordered main and some girls even for dessert, that good), deserts were from another planet, literally melting in your mouth. I don’t even know what were some of them, but they were very delicious. We had a set menu, because of the big group, but that’s the best we could have got. We had included unlimited drinks, 3 course meal and it’s only for 45euros. In the place like this, you can’t find anywhere better. Definitely recommend to everyone! Location is great and restaurant is beautiful. Thank you so much for making my day even more special than I thought...