Restaurant El Cortijo — Restaurant in Marbella

As a rule, I refrain from leaving negative comments or reviews. I am usually more motivated to draw attention to excellent goods or service. Unfortunately, the goods and service provided at Restaurant El Cortijo was nowhere close to excellent and definitely deserved to be called out for how far from that standard Cortijo strayed. What’s more, the purported owner’s snarky response here to a previous review by another member of my party makes it that much motivating for me to add this honest note how we were treated there. As in these reviews, so in person: snarky, dismissive, rude, sarcastic, unpleasant, unfriendly, poor customer service. In only three interactions, the supposed owner managed to display all these adjectives. This is the unanimous opinion of the three us of who dined together that evening. Right out the gate, I was torn between the baby goat and the baby lamb, so I asked the person who first presented himself as our server for his opinion. His verbatim response: “it’s too late for me to give my opinion.” Those nine words packed more heat in them than the long water sauce that was later served with my eventual choice (will get to that later). At first, I assumed something must have gotten lost in translation. I thought he was referring to how long his shift that day was already, so I repeated the question, putting it differently. The man’s next response made three things clear: he’s the owner; nothing was lost in translation; and everything would go downhill from there. He then clarified that “after 40 years, it’s too late for me to give an opinion on whatever you should get.” I was shocked. After a few moments, I thought of giving it a third try, thought better of it, then ordered the lamb, if only to end this interaction. As briefly referenced above, my dry baby (read with emphasis) lamb was served with gravy-colored water that did more to wet than to lubricate the piece of meat he overcharged me for. But I was the lucky one. Another in my party ordered the baby goat, which was served with no sauce. So I had to share my river water sauce to prevent choking, which would have made our meal only a little worse than it was already. Even after all of this, I was still prepared to excuse the service and forget about our meal, because we are all humans and everyone’s allowed to have a bad day. That was until we saw the owner’s exchange with another table. It was a man transformed. Not the jaded 40-year owner we had to suffer with, but an engaging restauranteur. He talked about his upcoming trip to New York City and how much he was looking forward to going to Broadway shows. He then burst out in song, serenading those lucky diners with what I assume is a number from one of his most anticipated shows. One has to wonder why our table was treated so differently. I just hope that those serenaded guests also lucked out in ordering and getting served meals for whose praises...

We visited this restaurant yesterday as a group, and while the food was acceptable, the overall experience left a very unpleasant impression mostly due to the staff’s behavior.

From the moment we walked in, we felt like we were being judged. It was as if they assumed we weren’t wealthy enough or “sophisticated” enough to be dining there. We were shocked by the subtle arrogance in their attitude especially considering that we are well-traveled and regularly enjoy high-end dining across Europe. Ironically, we’ve never experienced such condescension even in Michelin-starred establishments.

What truly topped off the evening was how they treated kid with us. She was calm, quiet, and extremely well-behaved the entire time. Yet despite this, it was obvious her presence bothered them. There were no high chairs, no offer of a regular chair, and no effort to accommodate us just cold looks and dismissive energy, as if children had no place there, no matter how polite they are.

We expected a pleasant dining experience. Instead, we were made to feel like second-class. Disappointing on every level, especially from a place that clearly wants to position itself as something exclusive.

REPLY TO OWNER: We’re surprised by the tone of your response. Our review was honest and based purely on our experience nothing more, nothing less. We weren’t trying to cause harm, only to share how we felt as paying customers.

It’s unfortunate that instead of taking feedback professionally, you chose to respond with sarcasm and personal attacks. We’ve dined in many reputable and high-end restaurants (including Michelin-starred), and this is the first time we’ve encountered such a offensive...

Food was great, service was appalling.

Me and my three friends, who are four nice girls in their 20s, wanted to have an authentic Spanish paella in Marbella together and so decided to go here because it was well reviewed. Unfortunately, upon first arrival we were refused tap water with the waiters imitating us behind our backs in Spanish for asking. They huffed and then laughed in my friends face when she asked if there was lactose in the meal as she is lactose intolerant. When we asked if we would be charged for the bread placed on our table, they rolled their eyes and when asked the same about the olives they laughed at us again and proceeded to talk about and mimic us in Spanish, assuming we wouldn’t be able to understand. When it came to paying the bill, we wanted to split the bill four ways but were told aggressively that they wouldn’t do this despite this not being an issue at the restaurants we’ve been to in the past week. The female waitress who spoke English came to our table and aggressively stated “Only one bill!” before storming off. There is no excuse considering the restaurant was completely empty and they had no reason to to be stressed. When we paid the bill and left, you could tell that another waiter was embarrassed at the behaviour of the two waiters who had served us. We calmly told the male waiter in Spanish that he had been quite rude.

Later in the day we passed by the restaurant again, and the male waiter who had served us flipped my friend off unprompted in front of the whole restaurant.

Food was...