Bodega El Pimpi — Restaurant in Málaga

I was really looking forward to visit El Pimpi, having being recommended by a friend.

First impressions didn’t disappoint as it is a beautiful building and fantastic looking entrance and bar area.

However, having booked ahead I was expecting someone to greet me or even a waiting area to be directed to my table. It was just busy and chaotic and when I asked someone in a white shirt he says I need to find a waiter wearing a black shirt. OK I thought, so I wandered further into the restaurant. Very busy waiters and I approached one and said I had a reservation. He says yes, wait and wanders back and forth and then says “upstairs”. Leaves us to walk upstairs, which I didn’t mind. Got to the top to a bar and again no one to greet you! So asked the bar man and he finds my name and says we can sit at any of the table for two’s.

We sat down all was very nice and we were soaking in the atmosphere. No one came near us for 15 minutes and we browsed a couple of pieces of trendy folded newspaper and said this is just a cocktail menu. We wanted to order wine and food. Finally a young waiter says there was a QR code on the menu to order food and drinks. OK no problem with that I thought, despite me thinking it is a bit cafe ish. Fiddly app to be honest and then bizarrely the young waiter comes over to us and asks what we ordered. Odd I thought why did we just use an app then? Wine waiter came over and showed us a bottle of wine which didn’t look like what we ordered but we just said fine, thank you.

Whilst we were waiting a large table of Americans next to us, turned to us and said we have ordered far too much food. Would you like this free paella as we realise we can’t eat it. We didn’t really want it as we had ordered a platter of fish and starters already. We politely said yes and laughed and chatted to this table and thanked them.

The waiter came over and lifted the heavy dish onto our table. He said we would have too much food, which was very nice of him to say. So we said we would scrap our starters and just keep the fish. No he says it is too big, so we cancel and order just a starter and a simpler fish main.

The paella I thought was OK but my friend didn’t really like it. We stopped eating it as we were looking forward to eating what we ordered. Starter some carrot dish was OK but I was not that impressed and the fish was just breaded fish that was a little boring after about three mouthfuls.

Anyway all proceeded fine, we drank our wine and soaked in the atmosphere and asked for our bill. Then it went rapidly downhill as when the bill arrived it contained the gift from our kind Americans, a whole €42 of something we didn’t order or really want, it was just going to go to waste!

We said to the waiter there has been a mistake and you have charged us for paella for two that was a gift from these wealthy middle aged Americans. No no he says they didn’t pay for it. Pardon we said, why didn’t you charge them and we remonstrated with them and said we were only paying for the food and wine we ordered. It turned nasty and we went and stood at the bar whilst we continued our argument. My friend and I are relatively wealthy gentlemen of nearly 60 and it is fair to say I was getting angry on a matter of principle. I said call the Policia if you like that is your mistake. A waiter waves his finger at me and says we have to pay. It was a warm dish we didn’t even want what a nightmare this was becoming. In the end we agreed to pay for half if this €42 dish on top of what we ordered and drank.

Long story I know but it spoilt our evening and it was the only thing we could talk about! In summary put it down to just local naivety and...

Been quite excited to this place because its an iconic spot co owned by Antonio Banderas which is my idol to my dismay the service not very good the staff not as friendly or respectful as the other restaurant I been to, tourist come and go but the experienced remains forever, I Dont know if staff just busy not noticing bump you already when passing without apology, once is ok but for 2nd time you get bumped again not even looking or apology where there's wide space I feel staffs are so rude, so I approach one staff to change our table because I will not get it for the 3rdt time., Thankfully the food was good, the ambience was nice but busy quite a lot of tourists from different countries I suppose like the one on our right asked us the name of what we ordered as he wanted to order it too, and the one on the left took ages to order not sure what to order. The staff is not helpful to customers not familiar with food and what they can offer. This simply reflects that the service is quite poor with a language barrier, I am making a review to emphasise the need for improvement to trained staff to be friendly, helpful and respectful. As a tourist from the UK, I have dined at a few restaurants during my more than a week stay and so happy with the services given like Pez Wanda who has Carmen a very helpful, cheerful staff member who is an asset to the company❤️😍 who I rated 5 star. As much as I would like to rate a 5 star for El Pempi because of my idol Antonio Banderas just couldn't as the service is quite poor. No one assist what they can offer been sat ages just to tell you scan bar code for the menu no photos not helpful to other tourist and if there is a language barrier between costumer and staff it doesn't help with the business, I hope the management look into this because this is quite disappointing. My review is based on what I have experienced and observed while dining. So far the ambience and food are good though I have enjoyed it, thank you though it could have been a great experience if the...

Very poor Front of House. We had booked online and visited on a Tuesday evening in October. Upon arrival, the first thing that struck me is that there was no one there to meet or greet (we entered from the Calle Granada entrance). I absolutely believe that when you first go into a restaurant you should feel welcomed and valued. This was not the case here at all. We wander in and waiting staff whiz past us. We move even further inside and eventually manage to catch someone - we tell them our name and that we have arrived for our 7:30 booking. We are briefly asked to produce email confirmation of our booking, but suddenly our name is located on the system and we are told everything is OK. We are shown to a table. We sit and wait. After 25 minutes absolutely nothing has happened and no one has approached us. I catch the female floor manager to ask if someone is going to serve us, or bring us menus? She indicates that we need to order using the QR code on the table literature. I mentioned that this was not explained to us upon arrival. So I open up the app using the QR code, thinking that this will allow me to send my food order directly to the kitchen, but no. All this does is allow me to bring up my choices on the screen of my smartphone which I would then need to show to the waiter (if and when they show up) - so I've been kept waiting for much longer than is reasonable and my order still needs to be shown to the waiter. 10 minutes later a very nice and very helpful male waiter approaches us to take our drink and food orders, which we have now managed to bring up on my smartphone using the QR code. Food arrived fairly quickly and was...average at best. Apart from our male waiter - who was very pleasant and helpful - all other serving staff were surly and appeared to be disinterested. We would not return; we have had much nicer food and have been treated much better at other local Malaga tapas restaurants - and believe me, we have been to many. El Pimpi is...