Makkila Núñez de Balboa — Restaurant in Madrid

The first course, artichokes, was very tasty. The second course, which I ordered duck with smash potatoes, was also good. However, my mother ordered meat with fries. The meat was very, very tasty, but the potatoes did not seem freshly made. They seemed like they were just reheated leftovers from lunch. We booked a table for 9:00 and planned to leave at 10:30. An hour and a half should have been enough time to enjoy two courses. However, we felt like we were part of some kind of fast-eating competition. The waiters were constantly rushing to take our plates, sometimes even before we finished eating. Everything was fine until dessert. We ordered a lemon dessert, but it had a distinct fishy taste. Honestly, I was glad I had a napkin to spit it out with. It was terrible, and the aftertaste stayed with me for the rest of the evening. I don't know what happened, maybe they had kept it in a refrigerator with seafood or something fish-like got in accidentally. Either way, the dessert completely ruined the whole meal. Would I recommend going there? Maybe, if you are with a group of loud friends, as they have a DJ and a lively atmosphere. But overall, there are plenty of other restaurants where you can eat quietly without feeling the pressure to finish your meal quickly just because you see a waiter standing by, ready to take your empty plate.. And because of that dessert, I would never go...

Hip Spot to order a reasonable priced Daily Menu Lunch. Makkila offers different lunch menu set ups that adjust to many budgets (considerable food size). They are shuffled every week and it’s characterized by modern Mediterranean dishes. We ordered the cauliflower garnished by garlic shrimps and an onion bechamel, followed by a Vickyssoise (warm soup), and the Rigatoni al tartufo. From those dishes mentioned before the Vickyssoise and Cauliflower are a must. Then we tried the steak tartar with french fries, and the black paste with lobster cream. The steak had a nice spicy notch. We wrapped it up with the miloja with cream. The service was cheered up by Javier who surprised us with a little treat to one of our guests 🥳😉. What I really enjoyed the most was the cool and fabulous decoration of the venue, you can get very entertain with all the different posters hanging around...

Fui a este local en una comida de grupo numeroso bajo menú (eligieron una opción en la que se compartían platos entre varias personas).

Antes de reservar contacté para consultar si habia opción de menú vegetariano, a lo cual me respondieron que se podía adaptar y que mandarían la información por email. Por correo tampoco llegaron a facilitar esa información, pero decidí acudir porque me bastaba con saber que había opciones sin carne ni pescado, cualesquiera.

Al inicio de la cena me identifiqué y le recordé al camarero que yo tenía un menú diferente, pero salvo una ensalada de tomate solo me ofrecieron dos platos de los del menú para compartir con otros comensales sin el jamón que originalmente contendrían; para los otros dos platos no ofrecieron sustituto. Tras preguntarle en un par de ocasiones al camarero y finalmente reportarlo al maître, rápidamente me sacaron tres platos contundentes y bien ricos, y diría que fui la comensal que más satisfecha salió!

Desarrollo tanto detalle para señalar que, anécdotas aparte, eché en falta suficiente INFORMACIÓN antes de la reserva, COMUNICACIÓN durante la cena, DEDICACIÓN hacia una dieta especial correctamente avisada (espero que no se preste la misma desatención a los alérgenos) y ACCESIBILIDAD de los camareros que parecían bastante saturados de trabajo y con insuficiente información como para aclararnos nuestras dudas.

No obstante quiero reconocer la FLEXIBILIDAD que finalmente prestaron; no tengo claro si el menú incluía esos platos y se trataba de un despiste a la hora de sacarlos o si se trató de compensar mi descontento... pero la verdad es que estaban bastante ricos.

En definitiva, amplio margen de mejora, pero con bastante disposición para...