Volta do Mar — Restaurant in London

We came here as a group of 5, on the positive side, the decor of the restaurant is nice, however as a portuguese native, this is anything but a representation of portuguese/brazilian/mozambican cuisine.

Slow service and unfriendly staff alongside expensive starters and cold toasted sourdough.

The fish stew had a few bits of fish and two small prawns , but was largely just a bowl of sauce for £20.

I really wanted to like this restaurant and was looking forward to it but sadly it is simply overpriced and not helped by unfriendly inexperienced slow service

Avoid for now but it has the potential to do better, this can be seen by some very tasty starter croquettes.

— UPDATE after restaurant reply on TripAdvisor:

There was an attempt to deflect just how bad the service was, we were a group of portuguese nationals and we obviously knew this was a different take on your traditional portuguese restaurant , aiming to be more of an exposé restaurant of portuguese speaking countries’ foods, that’s fine. But the expectations were not met for a restaurant who claims to have a Bib Gourmand.

The restaurant reply, sarcastically, seems to suggest we don’t know what we are talking about regarding the food served, the singular point that was made is that the Moqueca is a bland fish stew with two tiny pieces of fish and a bit of sauce for £20, that was a main and the person who eat it was hungry afterwards, that isn’t a normal experience, I eat in central london almost weekly, otherwise I wouldn’t write a bad review.

The waitress wasn’t polite as suggested, she realised we were portuguese nationals and treated us like we didn’t belong, yes she did her job but there was always the undertone of “I have to deal with you” there. All we wanted was a normal service.

Keeping our wine topped up isn’t an excuse for making us wait almost 2 hours for mains, the seevice was ridiculously slow, the table had a starter to dessert turnaround time of almost 3 hours.

Yes you apologised for the delays, that’s great but you didn’t even even have the manager come up and have a word or offer free desserts or a bottle of wine or anything of the sort off the menu when you knew you clearly messed up. A guest shouldn’t leave a restaurant hungry.

Next time just apologise in the review that you messed up instead of trying to deflect blame, the restaurant needs a lot of work, you can see the inexperience of the staff running it otherwise your reviews wouldn’t speak for themselves.

Like I said I really appreciate what they’re trying to do. Cuisine from different portuguese apeaking countries, it has promise, but the restaurant is in the wrong hands.

Lastly, the reply the restaurant left on my tripadvisor review ended with a sarcastic comment in portuguese translating to “next time if you want a portuguese experience there’s plenty of other places” which reads with undertones of “your kind isn’t welcome here”. Other reviews from portuguese people express similar concerns.

Like I said previously, it has so much promise but it’s ran by the wrong...

I once stopped by here for a coffee on a late afternoon and was immediately drawn to their menu, feel of the restaurant and the super friendly staff. I had it saved it on my maps for quite some time and planned to stop in when I was next in the area. Made extra exciting knowing a lot of the staff are actually Brazilian and could’ve been a great opportunity to practice speaking and ordering as I’ve been learning the language for quite some time. I finally was in town and decided to treat myself. The front of house staff who served me were so friendly. Once sat, it took a very long time to be served, the waiter eventually was apologetic but I didn’t mind as much though taking in the scenes and hustle and bustle of a busy restaurant. I was so looking forward to trying my favourite grape varietal, vinho verde only to be told there was none in stock. Ah sad face. After settling for a different wine i then ordered my food. Being a busy restaurant there’s usually a wait for food which is understandable and appreciated being told in advance the meal I wanted would be a 25 minute wait. I said no to worry I’ll just order something else as I needed to be somewhere and couldn’t wait that long.

I chose two starters and that was that. After waiting what felt like forever, alas the vin finally arrived. My bread and prawns arrived which I excitably tucked into. The bread being burnt in places not tasting very nice and the prawns slightly overcooked. I wasn’t too bothered however and happily ate my dinner anyway. The waiter asked if I wanted to put through my curry order. I was perplexed as I told him I had ordered starters instead as I was in a hurry hence ordering something that took half the time. He said he would have to check and see as the kitchen might have already started cooking it. reading between the lines that I might have to pay for it. His manager came over immediately after with a very rude tone and voice raised a little (this could just be her personality but it certainly didn’t come across friendly by any means) asking if I had ordered the curry I said yes in my first breathe then explained what I had stated to the waiter, that I was in a rush and i would just get two starters instead. She radioed the kitchen and asked to cancel my order. Seemed a little passive aggressive making it loud so I could hear insinuating It was my fault and messing up the order.

I hurriedly finished what was left of my meal feeling like absolute s**t and got out of there quickly after settling the bill. Definitely won’t be back after being spoken to like that. Being polite and friendly...

We came from France to celebrate a birthday in this restaurant. My friend said that they had good experience here, so they want to bring us to this nice restaurant. But sadly, when we arrived, the manager said that they had tried to contact to my friend who booked the table. Because they can't reach him, so they cancelled our reservation. I feel so incredible that my friend already had a confirmation e-mail after booking, logically, it's done! Just because he was busy working without picking up their phone call. They can assume that we are not going to show up and cancel our table! Why should my friend reconfirms again? The attitude of this manager is very arrogant and think that it's my friend's faut of not picking up their phone call. It was very difficult to find a restaurant which has a table available at this time, a Saturday night! This restaurant had ruined our birthday dinner. Luckily, there is a very nice italien restaurant, cafe Murano, just cross the street. They tried to arrange a table for us. The servie and food are very good! Very professional! If you are looking for a restaurant around Coven Garden with good servie, I strongly don't recommend Volta do Mar.

－－－－－－－－ Dear The owner of Volta do Mar,

As you wrote, so my friend has successfully booked a table of 6? In this case, even you can't reach my friend, you shouldn't have canceled our table. I was present at the moment when my friend was very upset of this situation. I didn't find you very polite. You make it sounds like it's my friend's faut of not picking up your call. You even ask my friend, your client, to stop speaking. In this case, how can we want to stay? If you were really trying to accommodate us from the very beginning, it won't happen this way. I guess that a person who are very busy, shouldn't reserve your restaurant, in case once we don't pick up your call. The reservation will be automatically...