Candela Restaurant — Restaurant in Wilton Manors

HORRIFYING EXPERIENCE - VERY UNGRATEFUL OWNER

Wow...what happened. THIS PLACE IS NEVER GOING TO MAKE IT. The restaurant business is a service business and this place doesn't know the meaning of the word. While the food is above average...not great but above average this owner has grown far bigger in his mind than his dinky restaurant warrants.. We always like to support small businesses in our community so when ten of us got together for dinner, we made our reservation here. I first received a very angry phone call from the owner whom I think is Armando.. He stated, "You have to order family style and if you don't want to do it don't come!" That should have told me something right there but I kept him on the phone and in the end I felt we could make it work. I think he was most concerned that we would spend a minimum of $35 per person which I knew we would surpass as we enjoy wine. We were placed in a room on the side and after 20 minutes, I had to go out and ask if we were going to get service. We ordered the wine and we were served in these tiny little glasses. I asked for a larger glass and was told "NO, we do not sere large glasses in this room. I made it clear that we did not ask to be placed in this room and was still told no. I walked into the other room and took a large wine glass off a table. I noticed the restaurant was empty...maybe three tables had people on a Saturday night. Armando proceeded to come in and scream at me about the glass and I actually stood up and wanted to leave and go elsewhere. Unfortunately the rest of our crew had their heart set on the food so in an effort to go with the flow I sat down. He had left the glass on the table so I went ahead and used the glass after all. Once we ordered more than $600.00 worth of food, Armando came in again and stood there screaming at us. He embarrassed me personally by screaming that " I can no longer set foot in his restaurant" and we need to finish up and we were not welcome to order desert - "Just pay and get out." One of our party walked out and paid the full bill just so we could get out quickly. I have NEVER been thrown out of a restaurant in my life. This a mediocre restaurant at best and treating customers this way is a guarantee his doors will close soon. Obviously, we will NEVER set foot in this insane place again! Way expensive...small portions...poor quality...poor service and a CRAZY...

We have been here twice the first time was on a Saturday night. It was busy but the service was good and the food was even better. The first thing you'll probably taste is the bread and it gives you an idea what you're in store for the rest of your meal; it is home made, delicious and thankfully they keep bringing out more. We had grilled octopus for an appetizer and I had the baby lamb chops while my wife had the pork tenderloin with blue cheese sauce and to drink we had sangria. The food was amazing everything was fresh, perfectly prepared and you can tell it was made with care. Thankfully the portions are not so big that you'll get over stuffed and we had room for dessert. We had the tiramisu and even that was incredible.

I was so happy with the experience the first time I was texting a friend during dinner telling him he should check this place out. So we made plans to come again with him and his wife but unfortunately they couldn't make it. So me and my wife made reservations for a Tuesday night.

Obviously they aren't going to be as busy compared to a Saturday night and the whole experience was much more intimate. The Chef came out after we ordered our wine and went over the menu with us told us the specials of the night and explained to us exactly how each meal was going to be prepared. For appetizers this time we had artichoke hearts which were amazing and the chorizo in red wine sauce. For our entrees we had a leg of lamb and oxtail which both were specials the Chef had for the night, actually the oxtail wasn't even on his specials menu so i think it was something he was experimenting with. Needless to say both dishes were incredible; they brought out the lamb first and then the oxtail once we finished the lamb that way we could each experience both dishes. For dessert we had flan which was delicious as well.The whole night was amazing and incredibly romantic; we will be coming back here again for a long time. It is also very reasonably priced you could spend more money elsewhere and not have nearly as good a time as we had here.

Oh and my wife is obsessed with the cooking videos they have playing on the TVs inside...

I had heard good things about the restaurant. Went in expecting to be wowed by the latin restaurant. What I found was a restaurant covered in futbol banners from Barça, Tenerife, and other places in Spain. Ok. So it's a Spanish restaurant, a tapateria, but no... I asked the waitress where people were from. They were cuban not madrileño or some other Spanish... The potato tapas had a good taste. But the loaf of bread i ordered was old and hard... The paella was decent but nothing special.. And I'm used to seeing much more seafood than I got here.. and my chicken came over a bed of potatoes. When I tried to order a side of rice, I was told I could not since there was no more rice except for the paella... Very strange... The wait staff was distant at best.. after I paid the bill, I found them standing outside talking or smoking as they said good bye to my group..

more interesting.. THIS is what the restaurant said in their response yesterday to me...

"Response from the owner 17 hours ago What I consider interesting is the fact that :"Ung" is a Latin-alphabet spelling of two Cambodian surnames and "Choi" is a common Korean family name. Yet, you have such a discriminating palate for Spanish Culinary... UNG CHOI......... "

My response to the restaurant... 1st of all that IS my real name.. you wanna check your credit card records of people who charged $150 for a lunch there recently? Go ahead.. you'll find my name... 2nd.. your response tells me that you know about as much about asian names and culture as you do about cooking paella and other comida espanola... not very much ... and last.. how do I know spanish food? because I lived there in Madrid, Andalucia, y las palmas Canarias... something that the people working in this restaurant have never done apparently.. and thanks to your even worse than your service reply, I am changing my rating from 2 stars to 1 star... I wish I could...