Restaurante De Maria - PLAZA CALLAO — Restaurant in Madrid

An experience we will never forget - and that's not a good thing. Food was not so much the issue, though nothing special, but the treatment we received at the hands of the owner/manager was absolutely disgraceful. You hear about customers making a scene but in this case it was the owner/manager. Upon receiving her steak my wife noted it was a bit under-cooked to her liking. She ordered medium, it seemed more rare. She just asked for it to be put back on the grill another minute, that's when the dinner went from being a nice outing to an absolute nightmare. When the steak came back out it had been butterflied so the 1 inch thick juicy steak was now a 1/2 steak with all the juices gone. We didn't even recognize it when it returned to the table as we have never seen steak treated so poorly. Little did we know we would be the next to get the steak's treatment. After refusing the steak the manager came out with his cell phone to show us an image of what a medium steak should look like so as to let us know we didn't know how to order. This of course was done rather loudly with other guests now wondering what on earth was going on. But he would conclude with NO PROBLEM, NO PROBLEM in a tone and volume that made it clear this was a BIG problem. Another steak was brought out which was fine and I finished my grilled ribs, which I would not recommend unless you like chewing fat and gristle. I won't hold this against the restaurant though because I was experimenting and while I love BBQ style ribs never had them grilled. The main event came with the bill. When I opened it I must have shown some concern as I faced about 15 charges on the bill when i expected about 6. What jumped out most was that the steak appeared 4 times on the bill. in one case it was marked as a subtraction but the restaurant still appeared to be double charging me. Before I could do the mental math to figure out that the total bill did not include a double billing for the steak (just a higher price and a few extras) our friendly owner/manager came out to resolve the problem. I show him the bill and questioned the number of steak charges. At this point he loses his ability to speak english and starts sputtering in Spanish to other guests, Mathematico! Mathematico and a string of other words!. We have no idea what he was saying to other guests about us but we doubt it was very nice. His volume did not decrease despite out calm demeanor and our request for him to quiet down and quit making a scene. We paid our bill and left quietly seething with a very terrible memory of what was otherwise a beautiful...

I was in the neighborhood and felt like having a steak for lunch, and found that this place gets a good rating on Google Maps so decided to go in.

The food is okay but service is very bad.

I ordered a ribeye, rare. The server tried to get me to change it to medium instead. I always order my steak rare, but for some reason she seems to feel like I won't be able to handle it. She kept saying along the line of: "Are you sure? It will be very rare. Wouldn't you want a medium instead? Let's make it medium."

It took a lot of back and forth, and I had to keep insisting several times that I indeed want a rare steak (it's what I always order, everywhere). And when she finally gave up and "allowed" me to order it rare, she said: "Fine, if that's what you want!", in an "Don't say I didn't warn you!" manner. I was very surprised, like how raw that could be? Why is she so adamant that I shouldn't order it like that? She might thought she meant well, but it was very condescending of her.

When the steak arrived, it was rare just like I wanted. Same as in several other restaurants I dined in. And here, the food quality is okay. Fine, and did the job, but nothing special (I've had better). But if the server did not keep insisting that I should order it medium instead, the experience would have been enjoyable. Now it left a bad taste in my mouth. And if I listened to her and ordered it medium like she wanted, it would have been a disaster.

I think the problem is that they are located in a very touristy area and got a lot of clueless customers coming in who prefer having steaks well-done and ended up complaining when it's too raw. So they developed an attitude that if they see a customer who is not local, they will immediately assume that customer doesn't know any better. It is a very ignorant attitude.

I also had to ask for the bill 5 times before they finally brought it over. When they did, they also brought me 2 tuile biscuits "on the house". Supposed to be an apology for the long delay in getting the bill. But the biscuits are almost stale, I only took one bite and...

I would put 5 star if it wasn't for the responsable of the sector we was. I think it was the responsable because he was dressed differently from the others. The thing is that the services it's amazing, the food delicious, we cut meat as we cut butter is that delicious. The advise from the workers and their kindness. The decoration with all the pics of famous, I was just seatnext to JLo hahhaaa. The desert it's just an explosion of flavors well put together, we took cheese cake and tiramisù, I have no words. But.... At the moment to pay comes the man asking if I will pay by credit card or money and I reply upGourmet chèque as I asked if it was possible before entering and they confirm. After that the man just ignored us, I called twice to give him the chèques he turn his face, I called another worker he came and gently count, I gave almost 6% tip which in Spain it's quite OK as we are not forced to keep any tip. I asked the lady to please confirme because I want them to take the tip and I didn't want make any mistakes with the up gourmet chèque, she asked that man and he just rumble I don't have time to lose counting those chèques without even looking at me. Well sir, if you do not want the up gourmet chèques the restaurant shouldn't not partenait with it but treating people bad because of that it's just so unprofessional and low. Those chèques represent the same money that a card, I shouldn't be diminished because I pay you. You are a shame and it's a pity because all the other workers are so professional, helpful and kind. You are a stain in the image of the restaurant...