LEÑA — Restaurant in Marbella

I had one of the worst dining experiences of my life at Leña Marbella, located at Puente Romano. What was supposed to be a pleasant evening turned into a nightmare due to the restaurant’s disorganization, unprofessional staff, and completely misleading pricing policy.

We made our reservation in person, and were told there was a minimum spend of 200€ per person for the terrace. However, when checking the official website (both Leña’s and Puente Romano’s reservation platform), the listed minimum was clearly 150€ per person, even for the terrace. I even made a mock reservation for the same date and time, selecting the terrace option — and it still said 150€. When I showed this to the staff, they arrogantly dismissed it and said “We are not Puente Romano,” despite the fact that reservations are made through their system.

The hostesses were extremely rude from the very beginning. When we came in to book, they rushed us and literally said “Do you want the table or not?” — no patience, no courtesy.

When we arrived for dinner, they moved us to another table, saying my dad’s cigar was affecting other clients, and that they needed to think about the client experience. I replied, “Sorry, but we are clients too.” If someone doesn’t want to sit in a smoking area, they should go inside to the non-smoking section — that’s not our problem. They were clearly only thinking about the experience of other guests, and completely disregarding ours.

The service during dinner was even worse. Our waiter clearly prioritized other tables, saying “I have to take care of my clients,” as if we weren’t clients too. When I asked what that made us, I got no response. The food was also shockingly bad for the price: a chewy, nearly raw steak with a side of four tiny asparagus — for four people. They didn’t even have desserts available later in the evening.

On top of that, we were asked to pay 800€ upfront, even though we ended up spending around 400€. When we asked to use the remaining balance for a bottle of wine or champagne, the waiter wanted to charge us extra instead of applying our prepaid credit. I was shocked.

I went to the host stand to ask why we were charged 200€ per person, when the Puente Romano and Leña websites both showed 150€ per person, even for terrace reservations. They told me that the 150€ only applies to inside tables — but I showed them the terrace selection online clearly listed at 150€. They continued to deny it and were rude and dismissive, even though I showed them the websites in real time.

I then spent 30 minutes of my dinner arguing with the manager, who tried to convince me the first row of the terrace is 200€, and the second row is 150€. But when we made the reservation, no one told us there were different rows or prices, and they just showed us both options as if it made no difference. Even when I showed the manager multiple times that the website said 150€, he brushed it off and said “I know my prices” and “I can’t help you.”

Not one person — not the manager, not the staff, not the hostesses — offered a single apology. They didn’t send anything to make up for their mistake. They simply took our money, treated us with complete disrespect, and made us feel like we were the problem.

For an 800€ dinner, we expected exceptional service. Instead, we were ignored, lied to, and insulted. They clearly rely on their high demand and trendy location to get away with treating guests poorly. Unless you’re willing to overpay, be treated badly, and fight to be respected, I suggest you stay far away from Leña.

This was, without a doubt, the worst restaurant experience I’ve ever...

We had a cold, a bit unfriendly welcome on arrival, we were seated like we were in a chiringuito and told to seat overlooking the kitchen when we actually wanted to seat looking the other way. We changed the plates arrangement on the table ourselves to overlook the restaurant and not the kitchen.

We were served bread which was quite hard and chewy (below acceptable), more chewy even than sourdough, they call it bread made with “masa madre”. Not nice, I would not recommend it to an elderly person either. The butter taste and presentation was really good though, one of the few things that we found to be proper of a 3 Michelin star restaurant.

We ordered a couple of cocktails as aperitifs, one Americano with no soda (half Campari half Martini Rosso with a large slice of orange in a short glass with ice) but they served us half a pint of Americano with waaay too much Campari, very bitter, and a very thin slice of orange. It was undrinkable. They had to repeat it twice to get it right. We also ordered a mojito but they served an undrinkable ultra-acidic drink with no sugar at all, we sent it back and didn’t order any more cocktails. Problem here is that they don’t taste the mixture before sending it to the table, huge mistake.

The choice of red wine by the glass was very good and very well priced, in particular the Ribera del Duero choice, it was great.

We then ordered 2 starters, the puerro a la brasa and the shawarma a la brasa. The puerro starter was ok in general but too cold and with too much sauce so we could not really taste the puerro unfortunatelly. The shawarma starter was spectacularly below par, the wrap was really hard and chewy, the chicken filling was cold and tasteless. Really, really disappointed with the shawarma. We actually told the staff about it for which they (at least) apologised. We showed them how hard the wrap was.

We then moved on to the presa iberica a la brasa and the cordero de Burgos as mains. Both of them were very well cooked and had a great taste, however, the meat was presented on its own, really boring! and the meat turned out to be a bit dry after all since it did not have any sauce, natural juices, gravy or olive oil at all. We ordered some olive oil to pour over the presa iberica so it was easier to eat, more juicy.

We finally had a dessert. They told is that 2 of them were not available on the menu. The only desserts available that were cold (as we prefer cold desserts over warm/hot ones) were the flan caramel with foam (not keen on foam...) and the chocolate cake. So we ordered the chocolate cake which we found to be extremelly average, boring, ordinary looking and not proper of a 3 Michelin star restaurant. Just a slice in the middle of the plate, on its own. We could have bought that cake on any pattisserie. No “wow!” factor here, hugely disappointed.

We left the restaurant very disappointed as we expected to have a good experience but we really did not enjoy it, we were expecting A LOT more from tonight’s dinner. We have dined much better at other places with zero Michelin stars, so it was not worth it. Although I must say we didn’t find it excessively expensive, even though some of the things we ate could have most definitely be taken off the bill, for example, the cold, hard, tasteless shawarma. They didn’t though, not nice/fair.

We would not recommend this restaurant as a good “3 Michelin star”, in our opinion it is definitely not worth the 3 stars. Don’t expect to have an amazing experience as you will be sadly...

Dear all from team Lena and the Dani Garcia group,

I am sorry to write this. let me say first of all that I have never left a message about my experiences of a restaurant.

After having made reservations well in advance to come and have dinner at Lena's, the time had finally come. Wednesday, August 30, 2023 at 7:30 PM had a table. We always find it a great experience to go to renowned restaurants and Michelin star awarded restaurants. We therefore always greatly appreciate the creativity, quality and passion of the restaurants.

Unfortunately we had such a disappointing evening yesterday. The aperitif drinks that were ordered earlier than the other 2 aperitif drinks took a lot longer. well can happen we thought. We received our sandwich with the adjoining butter on the table and the menu was handed over. We chose the following dishes: the foie gras apple, the famous Dani Garcia burger, the kebab, A5 wagyu. the sweetbreads and there with the croquettes, the potato puree, fries and mac and cheese. The goose liver was so incredibly salty that the whole balance was too much to be seen and was not tasty at all to eat.We said something about this and nothing was done about it. I just added a coke zero next to my table water to make you forget the sweetness of the dish. The sommelier thought the red wine we chose was a special choice and asked me if. I knew what I ordered and whether I knew this wine and was sure of my choice. especially that you take this attitude while you yourself as a sommelier have not brought the wine list and we have to ask for it three times. Ah and there came the monkey out of the sleeve. The wine was not there. A more expensive wine came to the table which was the replacement. The red wine was quite young and closed, so I also asked for a bigger wine glass and to decant the wine. This shouldn't really be a question, this knowledge should be a sommelier's. But okay you take it for what it is and just want to enjoy it. After less than a second of having finished the starter, the main course was already on the table. The wagyu and sweetbreads sliced ​​paper thin but served on a cold plate. the dishes cooled down so quickly, a shame. the sweetbreads were stiff, not properly cleaned and runny. When eating this I doubted for a while whether the sweetbreads were good. The wagyu was okay but not special. no one came to ask if alkes was satisfactory, the wine was not refilled and we could not reach anyone to order drinks. so disappointing. When taking out the main dishes, no attention was paid to the three quarters full plate of the sweetbreads! too bad because this one wasn't good. My feeling and taste of this turned out to be correct. Because I got very sick on the way home and I've had to throw up several times and I'm still sick with food poisoning!

All ready at dessert the bill was put on the table while we still had at least 45 minutes to stay at the table. No one asked if we wanted to enjoy coffee or tea, ah yes and that was obviously not possible because the bill was already on the table! We felt totally uncomfortable and very rushed.

We are therefore very disappointed after this visit to Lena. I myself am a viticulturist, I have worked in Michelin star restaurants for years and it is a passion to have lunch or dinner worldwide. I really can't get over how bad this was. I am literally and figuratively sick of it. Hopefully this will...