VAGA Restaurant & Bar — Restaurant in Carlsbad

Very good food, good service, weak on the "little things".

Food: Beet salad was tremendous, scallops were very good, risotto (spinach, today) was very good as were the shishito peppers. Caesar salad was good but a little too heavy on the anchovy for my taste. Mango Lassi for dessert was delicious.

Service: Attentive but understaffed (it was a Sunday night) so it could have been better. That's a management issue, not a service issue, the server was very good but needed help. I hold the management accountable for that, not the server. Kitchen service was flawless.

Atmosphere/Management: Very poor. They missed ALL the "little things". These items below may sound petty but when added up, they make a big difference. One or two I could overlook, but not all of these:

We had a 5PM reservation but had to stand and wait for the host. They weren't prepared to start their dinner service on time.

It was an overcast late afternoon but the lights were not turned on so the entire space was dark and uninviting.

I had to ask for the candle on our table to be lit.

Our table was wobbly, I had to ask for it to be fixed.

The chair arms were frayed and the table top was in desperate need of refinishing.

The choice of flatware is questionable. Good weight but poor ergonomics. Size of flatware is far too small for the choice of the dinner service set. Knives are useful for cutting warm butter and that's about it. Couldn't easily cut lettuce.

Dinner service set, earthenware, was very nice but inappropriate for certain dishes. My Caesar salad came in a large bowl which was perfect but the 4 scallops were served in the same dish, making them appear lonesome and dwarfed by the bowl.

The A/C was blasting away when it was well below 70 degrees in the dining room - too chilly.

The chilly breeze made the food get cold too fast and forced us to rush thru the meal.

Positive notes:

It was our anniversary and we were greeted with complimentary glasses of champagne.

Our dessert was presented with a little "sparkler" in it. While this was festive and a nice gesture, we had to let the stink of the sulfur in the sparkler subside before eating the dessert. While it was a nice touch, it would have been more fitting at Chuck'E Cheese, not Vaga.

All in all, we will definitely give it another try. The bar area looked more inviting and lively, and I'm sure on a busier night the atmosphere will be better. I give lots of credit to the kitchen staff and service staff, but the management needs to do a little introspection to get the "little things" corrected. If they do that, they're a five star...

Two stars but the good food elevated this to 3 stars. The food was pretty good but we were not very happy with the service overall. I have lived in San Diego for a while and even in the most upscale restaurants, there is a sense of laidbackness and approachability. Hell, even at Addison, which is a Michelin 3 star restaurant, the staff was much more grounded than the service personnel here.

We had reservations but we got here a little early and headed to the bar when they told us that there was some time before we could be seated. The bar wasn't crazy busy but it took a while to flag a server down. It felt like they were purposely avoiding us. Once we were seated, at least I got a sense that our server had already made up their mind about us. Could it have been the way we were dressed (non-fancy outdoor clothes as opposed to being dressed to the nines? I don't know. I just know that our experience here was dimmed by the service.

Let's talk about the food and drinks - the Moscow mule and Old Fashioned were pretty strong. A mule not presented in the right drinkware is always a little disappointing. We ordered the blistered shishito peppers, mashed yucca, the sea scallops and the catch of the day, which was salmon.

Our favorite in the list was the mashed yucca. I'm not the biggest fan of yucca because it is never smooth enough in the mashed form. This was not the case with the Vaga Yucca. It was mashed to the very last millimeter and then a little more to make a smooth, delicious mash with onions and cilantro. Absolutely delicious and we highly recommend ordering this.

The sea scallops were way more delicious than the salmon. I think it was vinaigrette that was the difference between the two. I would recommend them any day.

The blistered shishito peppers were delicious but not at all spicy.

This was a pretty expensive meal. I had expected more of a Mexican twist given the history of the restaurant's owner chef. It felt more American and fusion instead. While I don't mind paying for good food, I do think that we overpaid for the whole experience as the service part was severely disappointing. San Diego has several other amazing dining experiences so I don't think we will give Vaga...

For a restaurant located inside of a very high end resort hotel, I was very very disappointed. When I made the reservation, I stated that it was for a special occasion (wife’s birthday). Im guessing that it was never communicated to any of the staff because not one person mentioned her bday or offered any bday greetings. The interior is constructed with concrete and glass so it was very noisy inside. I was thinking that this would’ve been a nice quiet intimate spot, but it was anything but quiet. Again, believing that this was going to be a higher end fine dining experience, we dressed up a little. My wife wore a black dress and I had dress pants and a dress shirt. Nothing too crazy, but I observed that the staff was not very well dressed and neither was most of the clientele. All small details that I normally would not care about, but for the prices on the menu, I was truly expecting a little more class and flair. Our server was nice enough, but the service was very slow in every aspect. We ordered a bottle of California wine (pricey considering we are in Cali), and it seemed to take a long time to get that bottle. And it was not served at proper temperature at all. Felt a little warm. We ordered an appetizer to share with, 2 separate entrees and a side of rice and broccolini. Everything took so much longer than anyone would reasonably expect. The waiter apologized at least 3 different times about the delays. We did not complain at all because it was most likely not the servers fault and we were not in any rush at all. But when our mains did finally arrive, it was less than lukewarm. And honestly, the meals were nothing to brag about. Less than mediocre in taste and presentation. Because we’re here on a 2 week vacay, we’ve been eating at almost every restaurant along hwy 101 in Encinitas. Mostly locally owned and operated mom and pop places. The meals from these places have been outstanding along with the friendly service. But Vaga was literally the worst dining experience we’ve encountered period. Save your money, go eat at any of the great family owned restaurants in the area and enjoy a real fine...