Mare Mare — Restaurant in Abu Dhabi

I visited Mare Mare restaurant with my family on the first day of Eid at 5:30 PM. Unfortunately, our experience was quite disappointing due to the unwelcoming attitude of one of the staff members. A female employee approached us without a smile or any sign of hospitality. It was clear from her demeanor and body language that our presence, myself and my wife in traditional Emirati attire, made her visibly uncomfortable.

When I asked if there was a table available, she flatly told me that the entire restaurant was fully booked until 9:30 or 10:00 PM, without making the slightest effort to check for possible availability or offer any alternative. Strangely, around 80% of the tables appeared to be empty at the time. This raised concerns about the accuracy of her claim and whether all tables were genuinely reserved for the time she mentioned.

This type of attitude, lacking any form of warmth, courtesy, or customer service, is not acceptable—especially in a hospitality setting. She made us feel like an inconvenience rather than valued guests. It felt as though we were adding pressure to her shift simply by being there.

This isn’t the first time I’ve experienced this behavior. It’s my third visit to the restaurant following its recent renovations, and unfortunately, the staff member’s attitude has consistently been disappointing. I urge the management to investigate whether the restaurant was truly fully booked on that date and time, and more importantly, to reassess the training and selection of front-line staff. Employees are the face of the restaurant—they shape the first impression and determine the quality of service.

I do not recommend visiting the restaurant based on my recent experiences. However, I plan to give it one final chance and will share an update on whether the service improves or remains the same. For now, my rating is 2 out of 5—and that’s solely for the location. Otherwise, it would have been a 1.

I hope management takes this feedback seriously and works on improving the...

This place has gone downhill like every restaurant eventually does. It started with very skilled and attentive staff, the chef was a global name, the food was great, and we loved the maître d'. We used to go there almost once a week for dinner and we used to conduct business dinners there.

Then, they let go of the chef and hired a cook. maître d' Is gone. You can tell that the cook doesn’t have experience with Italian food by what comes out of that kitchen. I got wet and watery duck ragu. It was obvious that it had been defrosted and the pasta was overcooked. It was so depressing. Eventually an Indian gentleman came out of the kitchen and introduced himself as the cook (not the chef). He apologized and begged us to accept a replacement but we were just tired of trying. This was the third time we had been let down by this restaurant and sadly it was our anniversary. They didn’t even extend a gesture for the occasion.

The atmosphere is no longer an elegant, mature, warm restaurant. It’s now a sticky dirty worn cafeteria vibe with nannies feeding babies on their own at one table (probably the parents don’t want to eat there!), shirtless sweaty swimmers and their children dragging their flip flop feet through, and it takes ages to get help from a waiters. No music and we had a leak by our table.

Just gross. Nothing nice is left to go back for. We are so sad that we can’t go back. The chef and waiters used to know us and they took care of us. We would go there weakly and take business meetings...

We came here for dinner on a Sunday as a walk in, and no reservation was needed. The restaurant is very beautiful, and right on the beach within the jumeriah Saadiyat hotel complex. The interior feels very organic and high end. Service was very good; orders were taken promptly and attention to detail was very good. I know they say don’t fill up on bread, but the bread supplied for the table was so lovely fresh and soft. The balsamic vinegar and olive oil were amazing with the bread. Do not sleep on the bread. We had the eggplant parmesan for starters which was incredible. The cheese was perfectly creamy and the eggplant was beautifully Smokey. For mains we had the linguine with clams and the primaverde salad. The salad was very nice. Initially it looks like a lot of leaves but the dressing was amazing and it was very well balanced. The seafood linguine was very good and creamy and paired nice with the house chilli oil. They had a good range of veggie options too and the host provided lots of choices and was very...