Manuka (Plaza del Mar) — Restaurant in Marbella

We recently dined at Manuka, a restaurant in Marbella that prides itself on using organic ingredients. Unfortunately, the service was lacking, and my experience with the food was less than ideal. I ordered the organic beef burger, but the waiters didn't ask how I wanted it cooked. The burger arrived almost completely raw and looked like it had been taken straight out of the fridge and cooked for only a few seconds. When I complained to the manager, he apologized and promised to have the chef cook my burger to medium. However, to my shock, they brought me the same half-eaten burger back! I was very disappointed with the service and quality of the food. I have never seen a restaurant recook and serve the same food, especially with a hamburger that has multiple ingredients. Needless to say, I won't be going back to Manuka anytime soon. Spanish: Recientemente cenamos en Manuka, un restaurante en Marbella que se enorgullece de usar ingredientes orgánicos. Desafortunadamente, el servicio fue deficiente y mi experiencia con la comida fue menos que ideal. Pedí la hamburguesa de carne orgánica, pero los camareros no preguntaron cómo quería que se cocinara. La hamburguesa llegó casi cruda y parecía que la habían sacado directamente de la nevera y la habían cocinado solo unos segundos. Cuando me quejé con el gerente, se disculpó y prometió que el chef cocinaría mi hamburguesa a punto medio. Sin embargo, para mi sorpresa, ¡me trajeron la misma hamburguesa medio comida de vuelta! Me decepcionó mucho el servicio y la calidad de la comida. Nunca he visto que un restaurante recocine y sirva la misma comida, especialmente con una hamburguesa que tiene varios ingredientes. No volveré a Manuka en el futuro cercano.

This is my reply to your response to my original review:

Thank you for your response, but I must say I am disappointed with your lack of acknowledgement of the issues I raised. As someone who has visited and dined at various prestigious restaurants around the world, including Michelin-starred establishments, I can confidently say that the burger I received at your restaurant was not only unappetizing, but also undercooked and potentially hazardous to my health. Your restaurant's lenient policy regarding returned meals is not the root of the issue here. The real problem is the poor quality of your food and service. It's concerning to hear that your manager didn't even recommend your restaurant, and it's even more concerning that your chef was unable to properly prepare a simple burger. As someone who has experience in cooking and wine tasting, I would suggest that you re-evaluate your ingredients, cooking techniques, and staff training if you want to continue running a successful restaurant. It's not about having security guards to prevent customers from taking advantage of your lenient policy, but about delivering quality food and service that your customers can enjoy and recommend to others. I hope you take my feedback seriously and use it to improve your restaurant. Thank you for your time. Please follow me on Instagram! You can find me at...

WARNING: I must share a particularly terrible experience I had here. And it had nothing to do with the food, as technically I was not even in the restaurant.

I had taken a seat at one of several empty tables in the atrium of this mall. I had been sitting for about 20 minutes in what I considered a common area space for the public. One of the staff of the restaurant, a balding 30-something man with a beard, walks over to me while I am on a phone call and tells me in his broken English that the tables belong to the restaurant and I need to buy something otherwise I cannot sit at the table. I paused my phone call and asked him to explain how these tables could belong to the restaurant since they are more than 5-8 metres away and are located in the atrium of the mall, not inside or even next to his restaurant. He could not explain himself but did make a threatening comment that if I did not leave he would call mall security, to which I said go ahead. I told him I’d likely be leaving in a few minutes anyways and I did not believe I was doing anything wrong.

About 5 minutes after, the waiter walks back over to me and this time in a more threatening manner, telling me I need to leave. I am still on a phone call and I told him I will not leave, that I am seated in a public place in the mall, and at which point he grabs my items on the table and physically moves them onto the floor, and then he picked up the table right in front of me, lifted it up and tried to take it away, and almost hit me in the face with the leg of the table. Had I not moved my head, the leg would have hit me in the face. After he moved the table in this manner he advanced toward me like he was going to hit me. At that point I told him that I’m leaving and I’m calling the police. There was another staff member behind their counter, and she did nothing to stop this assault.

I walked outside and called the police. I was told to stay in the area and that an office would arrive. As I waited for the officer, I think the waiter noticed something was up and he might be in trouble, so at the point he approached me, as I was standing outside in the sun, and attempted to apologize to me.

To say that this encounter was incredibly startling and very upsetting would be an understatement. I was clearly sitting in an area that was for mall patrons, which I was as I had made a purchase from another store. This behavior by the staff member was beyond unreasonable and he is lucky I did not have him arrested.

Edited* Their response speaks volumes. There were no kids in this area and no signange that indicated it was private space. In fact, it is located in the center of the mall entry. Myself as well as a woman at the table next to me were both using what would be defined as common mall space. The waiter did not hassle the woman, but chose to hassle me instead. Perhaps he did not want to intimidate her but felt it was ok to intimidate another man.

The fact that they cannot even apologize for how their staff behaved is...

Horrible experience, and here are the reasons:

We were a group of 19 pax that reserved 3 days prior, when we came, we had no table prepared. We wanted to have breakfast, arrived at 12:45 (15 min late to the end of breakfast) however they still refused serving us although we were 19 people and only 15 min late. The reservation agent also never mentioned that the breakfast ends at 12:30. We had a place in the terrace with a lot of sun exposure, we had to repeat that we need parasols over 5 times and still couldn't get any. The moroccan waiter with curly hair was very rude, impolite and lacked attention as everything he brought was missing things, the orders were over the place and nothing was served in the right order, when one of the colleagues tried to bring his attention to the bad quality of the service, instead of apologizing he started responding in the most disrespectful way and basically telling her to go to hell. We then asked to have another waiter, things got slightly better but still, the food was okay, yet lack of seasoning in many plates and the lemonades were not nice. At the end they charged us another drink that we didn't even order. The prices were ridiculously high and honestly, the place is not even worth it, nor the decor nor the service nor the food.

Overall opinion: NEVER coming back...