Cortijo de Pepe — Restaurant in Málaga

Came there at 6pm on Oct 7th 2023. There were only staff, lady and a man. The issues below are based on the man, the lady was actually quite nice.

If you're in the mood for tapas or typical local fare, El Cortijo de Pepe is a must-visit. I've been there multiple times, and I always want to go back, especially for their grilled chorizos – always the highlight of my visits.

However, the overall experience sometimes gets let down by the customer service, which doesn't live up to the food's high quality. During my visit yesterday with a group of eight, we had several issues with the service. We were told that if we wanted the larger table instead of two smaller ones, we'd have to bring our own plates, and it didn't seem like a joke. The evening had moments where one staff in particular made passive-aggressive comments, we had to wait too long for our food, our drink orders were forgotten, and we felt rushed when trying to order more.

While I still love going to El Cortijo de Pepe for its amazing food, I can't help but think they could do better with their service. I've noticed this in several places in Malaga where the food is great, but the service doesn't match up. A suggestion for the management: maybe check out how restaurants in Granada and Cordoba handle both food and service – it might give some good ideas.

EDIT: Even though I love it I wanted to say that charging 14 euros for a Gambas Al Pil Pil a bit cold and not piping hot is...

*As requested by the owner: we visited your restaurant on the 1st of September at around 21.00 pm and we were sat upstairs close to the balustrade as there was no place outside. There were 3 waiters working on the floor: a blonde girl who was kind enough and two guys, one of them being super grumpy. We ordered 2 vermouth to start the dinner and then the tapas and 2 + 1 beers. * We ordered 7 different things from the menu and they were brought to our table all at the same time. When I go to the restaurant I like to enjoy my food, but in this case we had to rush to avoid that part of our meal became too cold, as we had ordered all hot food. I'm not joking if I say that we sat at 21.00 and at 21.15 we had already finished our meal. Like..."and now? Should we go and eat somewhere else?" And we were sitting inside and upstairs were there were surely not people waiting for a table, as they were outside. The cherry on the top was ordering an extra beer from a grumpy waiter who literally left it on the corner of the table, not even looking at us in the face. Tastewise the food was average, especially the jamon that was hard and dry. I read that the place is a favourite with the locals, but I saw mainly tourists and we felt treated as such. I was looking forward to eating here but sorry...a big...

We were very much disappointed by this place. Friends but also local blogs recommend it and it’s always full of people. We waited about 10 minutes to get seated as it was packed, which is fine. Then from moment zero, waitress seemed to be very stressed, guess she had a rough day. On your way upstairs you have to go through the kitchen and curiously enough you could overhear conversations… and they were not good. It was like watching a Hells Kitchen episode live. However, this is no excuse to give a rude and bad service which is what we had. Food was very average, almost poor quality. Although service was quick in serving, dishes arrived almost cold and we had to ask for the check more than four times. They were so careless and neglected us so much we could have left without paying and they would have never noticed. Every other table around us was having an issue with the overall bad service. I definitely not recommend this place. Quoting the waitress that was complaining out loud “Pepe (the owner) lives too well while having his business understaffed and employees exploited”. We had Migas, Gambas Pil Pil, grilled octopus, and a Flamenquín. All...