Adelaide Restaurant — Restaurant in Del Mar

THE GOOD: The only good thing about our dinner here was our waitress. She was very nice, helpful and did the best that she could.

THE BAD: Everything else. We went here for dinner and upon entering, you go through the hotel lobby. It was SO LOUD with music (which eventually turned into live music), talking, dogs barking (yes, dogs) and several babies happen to be very unhappy. The issue with this is that the restaurant is immediately CONNECTED to the lobby - so you hear and see everything going on in the lobby. We were having dinner here for my husband's milestone birthday and we were EXTREMELY disappointed from start to finish. What a huge mistake for us not reading other horrible reviews because they were SPOT ON!

The food was BEYOND horrible. My husband got the pate for an appetizer and he said that he had eaten better pate from Costco! What ???? This is not good. I had the gem salad and it was mostly just a few pieces of lettuce. We also ordered bread (as it isn't given to you) and it was focaccia with 3 different kinds of butter that were all SPICY AF and were about the most unappealing looking butters I've ever seen. They all looked like...well...for lack of other words...poop! Now, they didn't taste like that, but they were spicy and frankly, just weird!

My husband had ordered a "22 oz prime rib steak". HUGE MISTAKE!! Not only was it FAR FAR from 22 oz...it was NOT prime at all. This meat looks like it had in a previous life been either a shoe or charcoal. It was HORRIBLE!! How can a "nice" restaurant even dare serve this!!! My scallops were inedible because of the way they were (not) cooked. I sent them back one time as they were almost raw and when I got them back...nothing had been done!!

When my husband wanted to order wine, the waitress sent over the Sommelier. Well..this poor guy had NO idea what he was doing. He said he was new and his role was "F & B Director/Sommelier". While he was very nice, he was NOT a Sommelier at all.

I reminded our waitress at the end that it was my husband's birthday and she brought the desert menu and said "pick anything it will be on us". Yes..that's nice....but seriously...most nice restaurants will give you a nice dessert with "Happy Birthday" written in chocolate or something very nice. NOPE..NOT THIS ONE.

We paid almost $300 for a meal that we just wanted to forget - couldn't eat most of - had to deal with all the noise and just wanted to get the hell out of there.

WHAT A DISASTER!!

SKIP THIS RESTAURANT and do...

First of all - we went there because it was listed as a restaurant with a view. Really, all you see is the pool area ( and all the people in bathing suits). In the distance, beyond the pool you can see the ocean. Hardly a “restaurant with a view” experience.

Waiter (Sam) was very knowledgeable about the food and gave some good recommendations. However, after that he occasionally stopped by. We watched him be very chatty with all the tables around us he was waiting on and didn’t pay attention to two key things about our dining experience:

1. We brought a bottle of wine which he opened for us, but never once came by to pour it for us. We poured ourselves until the bottle was empty. Meanwhile, the “busser” kept coming by to pour the bottled water.
2. We ordered salads first. However, the dinner came well before we were done with the salads. The person delivering the food just put the food on table and left. When we mentioned it to Sam, he gave an excuse and didn’t offer to fix things.

Also, this is not a peaceful place to eat. Babies crying and parents not taking their kid out until they calmed down.

All in all - very good food, but poor dining experience. This is really a restaurant for people staying at the resort - not a place you would want to go to for a special dining experience. If you’re the type of person who finds a good meal includes a good view, and being taken care of while being their guest, then this is NOT the place to go. I could have opened and poured my own wine and made a steak at home for much less and would have enjoyed the experience more -and would not have had to listen to crying babies and looking at overweight people in their bathing suits...

We would not recommend Adelaide at L'Auberge Hotel in Del Mar. We eat out a lot and never had problems until this restaurant. We were there to see our friend for his birthday, he was the singer that evening. We had a reservation for 7 pm, I phoned the hotel and they said the entertainment starts at 5:30 so we changed the reservation to 5:30. We sat down about 5:20 and eventually they said the singer will start at 6:30 but the manager told us we had can only have the table until 7:30, a 2 hour limit, I explained that we were misinformed by the hotel, but it did not matter to the manager. The singer didn't start until 6:55, so we had our table for 35 minutes left in our reservation. The restaurant seems to be more concerned with making maximum money than customer satisfaction. My wife was doing a video of the singer and was sitting at an empty table. A waitress told her to leave, people were coming. My wife touched the waitress on the shoulder saying sorrow. The waitress says if you do that again,"I will call security and have you removed". My wife was shocked. We spent close to $400 at the restaurant and the bar , we were told to leave our table. The evening was unpleasant. We will never...