El Café de la Ópera — Restaurant in Madrid

This is a copy of my Yelp review, please see https://yelp.to/b6__j9vdwf

My reviews generally have a positive selection bias. If a restaurant is great I'll review it. If it's mediocre, I'll probably not bother. Enticed by good Google reviews our family decided to give our hotel's restaurant a shot for dinner. What a disappointment. A closer examination of the positive reviews praised this locations' music, drinks, and ambiance. Its Yelp reviews are terrible. Thus I must break my bias and leave a negative review. I do not enjoy doing so.

Despite coming later in the evening (9pm) with a restaurant only half full we waited over an hour before receiving our meal. After a greasy deep fried amuse-bouche: some tempura vegetable and an omelette cracker(?) we could barely ingest, we waited. Then waited some more.

While I dock excessive wait times from the service column some credit to the staff here - when my daughter in elementary school complained loudly how hungry she was to us, the waiter brought out a slice of Serrano ham on toast to placate her.

On arrival the kid's pasta was adequate, if somewhat tangy, but the steaks were an operatic tragedy. Both steaks were ordered medium but came back deep blue in the center. I generally sympathize with the European lean towards rare meat (medium-rare for me all day) but this was excessive, and the first time I sent two steaks back. Tragically, when they were returned to us they were both well done, dry, and almost lacking in flavor. Honestly it has been years since I've faced the double slap of a steak first blue then well done. What a waste of a perfectly good piece of meat and an insult to the proud Spanish bull.

The restaurant was reasonably attractive and clean, the staff friendly enough, although very slow as mentioned above, and the prices would have been reasonable were the steaks properly cooked.

I cannot sing any praises for Cafe Opera - the entire experience fell flat. No more puns - I recommend you skip this one.

Food: 1.5/5 Service: 3/5 Ambiance:...

As a traveller coming from Hong Kong, I recently had the pleasure of having breakfast at El Cafe de la Opera. The most striking aspect of the experience was the level of service delivered by our server, Sara B. She was particularly attentive and personable, seamlessly adding warmth and a personal touch to our meal.

The culinary offerings at El Cafe de la Opera were, in all fairness, decent. The dishes were satisfactory, providing a breakfast experience that complemented the morning nicely. Though not the highlight of the day, the food quality was competent and suited our breakfast needs.

In conclusion, El Cafe de la Opera offers a pleasant dining experience primarily driven by excellent customer service. The restaurant is a solid choice for anyone in search of a decent meal served with great care and...

We visit this place twice for a lunch as we are staying nearby. It was pretty good for the food, ( not everything, but most of the things which we ordered were fine). For the service ok, first day had to asked 3 times for bill, it took about 20 min. Today was a lady who spoke great English and was fast. The only thing I found weird that second day they charged for 3 small pieces of bread (which we didn’t order, it’s coming automatically with lunch) 5€, and first day they charged normally for lunch and drinks separately. That’s is ok, but would be fair to inform somewhere about it. Must be on the...