Maria de Cadaqués — Restaurant in Palamós

First the good: The food here is sublime. Fresh seafood, unpretentiously prepared. Exactly what you'd expect. The food and atmosphere is a 10/10. Get the seafood rice casserole for sure.

The bad: We arrived at the restaurant 5 minutes before opening, and asked if we could be seated. We were told by Maria that she could not seat us at the time. No problem. Out we went, disappointed but totally understandable. As we walked around Palamos we decided to check if maybe a reservation had opened up on Google. Cancellations do happen afterall. To our surprise, there was a ton of availability for later in the day. Great! I made a reservation on Google and got an email confirmation. When we arrived later, we were treated EXTREMELY rudely. We were seated begrudgingly and then told "you can't make a reservation for the same day..you tricked us". The service from then on was sparse and when it did come, was very rude from Maria. When it came time to pay my bill I was left sitting there for 30 minutes. I asked repeatedly and it became very obvious that Maria was leaving me hanging on purpose. I played her game and just sat there staring as she wiped cutlery and I waited for the cheque and got dirty looks.

Maria, I suggest you fix your Google reservation system. And if you do decide to seat someone, then treat them nicely. I would rather not have been seated.

Edit: Based on her response to my post I need to dock yet another star. Maria keeps proving that she is a grumpy lady undeserving of her customers. We were nothing short of kind and respectful and received hatred in return. It ruined my whole day. Her food is good, but she is terribly entitled. We were treated like...

Probably my best food experience while in Catalunya for over six weeks and that’s saying a lot as we’ve had several excellent food experiences in that time. We had the following and every one was excellent …. Croquettes de gamba de Palamós, Canana amb ceba, Fideuà and Pescado a la donostiarra or fish a la San Sebastián. While I can’t fault the food the one complaint I do have is that it was very difficult to make a reservation. While in theory it can be done on Google maps, after several tries we gave up on that (it may work on another occasion). The other method provided via restaurante.covermanager also didn’t work. It was challenging to find the phone number and when we did we only got a very fast spoken Catalan voicemail providing another phone number which we couldn’t make out. We finally got a mobile phone number with a Google search and called to make a reservation, en Español. My suggestion, add the mobile number to the Google business listing, as only that number...

No hi penso tornari, malgrat el menjar estaba bé. Pero la marta deixa molt que desitjar. Tracta amb el client nul. Insolent i poc professional. Ja t'ho diré ben clar, és la darrera vegada que contacto amb tu. No insolent, el que ve després. El que va marxar decebut i maltractat vaig ser jo i la meva esposa, noia. Tinc setanta-sis anys i ahir era l'aniversari de la meva senyora i mai m'han tractat com tu ho vares fer. Vergonyós. Ens vares reservar la taula per les 14:30. Vàrem arribar puntuals i et vàrem demanar quatre plats i com ens vas dir que no eren abundants, tu mateixa ens vas dir que si, quedàvem amb gana, podríem demanar quelcom més i que li demanéssim. Escasos minuts, passades les tres, et vàrem demanar un plat d'espardenyes, plat no barat, per cert, i la teva freda resposta va ser que la cuina havia tancat. Em vaig quedar de pedra, igual que la meva senyora i t'ho vaig fer saber jo. Ella és molt prudent, però jo em vaig sentir enganyat per tu. Aquesta és la pel·lícula dels fets. I la teva actitud freda, gèlida amb la nostra idea de menjar un cinquè plat, un dia especial, sobretot per la meva esposa, ens ho vares espatllar sense cao mirament ni cinsuderació. Per cert, en cap moment del dinar ens vas avisar que la cuina tancava a les 15:00. I per la nostra part, era impensable que puguessim imaginar que la cuina tancava mitja hora desprès d'entrar al restaurant. Un fallo teu per no avisar-nos. Ets una...