Manuka (La Cañada) — Restaurant in Marbella

This place used to be inspiring once but now has become a disgrace.

We arrived at 17:30 and after leaving us waiting for 10 min one waiter stopped by our table and said in the rudest way possible "We are closed!" no hallo no nothing. Then we said you close at 18:00 and he responded "Well you can have takeaway!". We only wanted a quick cake and juice, nothing from the kitchen but he did not care/

So we ordered one carrot cake and one juice to take away and we were treated again by another waiter on the cashier with disrespect and severe unfriendliness. He was annoyed that we wanted to pay by card and he needed to wait until his coworker came back with the card terminal (how can they possibly have only one terminal?).

The cake was squeezed into a container that did not fit, so the entire topping was sticking to the plastic, the cake was only a small size. I have to mention that we had this cake many times before and it always was bigger. He did not even give cutlery for the cake, and when I asked for hit yet another worker full of annoyance.

The juice was prepared in front of our eyes, and we saw the worker blending about 1.5 times more that he could fit into the takeaway cup. We couldn't believe our eyes when he flushed the other have down the drain. What a disrespect to food. And this place advertises with terms like "conscious". In our shops before we flush a good fresh juice down the drain we give it to the client for free.

When we left, no thank you, no bye bye.

Another thing that bothers me a lot is that we go regularly to this place since about three years. And there was once a vibe and warmth, friendly staff. It was a real heaven. But now it's the opposite, it feels like a corporate commerce place where only money counts and not customer service.

The staff is now incredibly unfriendly, rude and it appears even xenophobic. Although they speak English with others, they refuse to speak English with us. If I order or ask in English they would respond in Spanish although they just talked with somebody on another table English.

I recall an incident about 2-3 months ago in Manuka at the beach, that a waiter told me "You are here in Spain now very long. Why don't you speak Spanish? You really should learn it!". That was for me actually the last time to go to Manuka. Now we gave it another try and had an even worse experience.

From now on Manuka won't be a place anymore for us to go. There are other Health food places in Marbella which I won't name here but where the staff is extremely friendly, speak English with their foreigner clients and where you simply...

First time visiting a Manuka restaurant. It was really busy but luckily there was a table left. They do have a feature where you scan a QR code and order your food that way, which I think is pretty cool. It felt more like a fast food joint than a restaurant certainly at La Cañada branch anyway.

Order a juice and the protein power bowl; both of which arrived really quickly. The only thing is the juice was warm which was quite off putting and definitely not worth £6. Protein power dish was largely quinoa which had no flavour and some dry chicken, literally 30g of sweet pots to if I was lucky and the black beans, not much of those either, looked like they had been microwaved. I did want to try a dessert but after feeling let down by what I had already ordered and given the price of the desserts, I decided against it.

The concept is good but I think the food needs to be improved. It all looks nice fresh and colourful on Instagram but the reality is a bit different.

In the end I paid €24 for a warm ‘cold’ drink, immunity shot and a bowl of dry food …. Safe to say I won’t be returning to any Manuka branches...

I went with my sister and we ordered two iced coffees and a protein power dish. From the start, the service was awful. We waited 15 minutes just to get noticed, no one came over, no menus, nothing. I had to get up and ask for the menu myself, and even then they said “one moment please.” I had to call the staff over again before they finally brought it.

We placed our order, got the drinks, and then waited… and waited. After almost an hour, we still hadn’t received any food. The staff didn’t check on us, didn’t look in our direction, and acted like we didn’t exist.

When we finally decided to leave, the waitress first denied that we had even ordered food, until I pointed out that she had brought us cutlery. Only then did she remember, but she didn’t apologize or show any concern. When we paid, she looked completely indifferent.

Of course, we didn’t pay for the food we never got, but overall, it was a really disappointing and frustrating experience. The service was inattentive, slow, and unprofessional. Would absolutely...