Garcia — Restaurant in Montevideo

Honestly, if I were you I would give this place a pass. The steak that we got was fantastic, the wine was perfectly fine, and the setting was really nice. So why three stars? Let me tell you.

Our server was nice enough, but he certainly was trying to up-sell us on everything. From the wine to the food to dessert and coffee, he definitely was pushing us to order more, both in quantity and in price. That’s to be expected though to some extent, but you also expect the level of service and quality of food to match the price and the hassle.

We ordered the avocado salad, and to this day I have never tasted an avocado with less flavor. In fact, I’m not totally sure what I tasted was even an avocado... maybe an avocado ghost. The rest of the salad was fine, and the server even made the dressing table-side. But considering that the only reason that we ordered the avocado salad was for the avocados, it was surprising when they had zero flavor... and were the size of quail eggs. (I know that Uruguay has massive avocados because I saw them in the market yesterday). When we mentioned this to the server, he sort of shrugged and said “I’ll tell the manager” and walked away. The salad cost around $11USD, so that’s pretty pathetic service. (I would have been fine if he had replaced it with a standard side salad, but that’s not what happened)

The steak arrived quite suddenly, completely unadorned, and it looked fantastic. Since my husband and I planned on sharing, we ordered the 500gram “master baby beef”. It came highly recommended, and I must say that I agree. It was great! We were surprised, however, when our server forgot our side of mashed potatoes. An honest mistake I’m sure, but maybe if I had sprung for the expensive bottle of wine (rather than the $11USD bottle, which sells for $2.50USD down the street), he may have remembered. The mashed potatoes were hot and delicious, so we were very happy to have them!

We had to refuse dessert/coffee about three times, and we wondered if we would be charged for the half-eaten lackluster salad that we were given. Plot twist: of course we were. In addition, the charged a cover of 120 Uruguayan each (about $4 EACH), which got us a basket with a couple of thin breadsticks and a few rolls to share.

So all in all, the paltry bread basket was $8, the serviceable (but overcharged) wine was $11, the somewhat disappointing salad was $11, the delicious (but fashionably late) mashed potatoes were $5.50, and the fantastic steak was $25 for a grand total of about $60 for dinner. Now I realize that this isn’t terrible for a bottle of wine, a steak, a salad, and a side... but in this town, we’ve had MUCH better.

At the Mercado del Puerto, we had a similar meal for 2/3 of the cost, which is considerable since it’s very touristic there. Furthermore, we sat on stools at the bar and had impeccable service, with servers even cutting our food for us. Deluxe, right?

So I dunno, you can come to this up if you like. The steak was outstanding (the one in the port market was maybe a hair better, but that’s up for debate). But for the cost of the cover alone, you can get almost halfway across the city in a taxi. Are stale breadsticks and tasteless avocado that...

I had a “PREMIUM” lamb chop with grilled vegetables. I ordered them to be medium-rare but they came almost well-done. The quality of the 4 chops was extremely bad. I had to return 2 of the chops because the knife couldn’t cut them! And they replaced them with slightly better ones. In the menu they were called PREMIUM! The vegetables were OK.

I ordered a bottle of a reasonably good Uruguayan red wine. Unavailable! I made a second choice. Also unavailable! Each “round” took 10/15 minutes. Finally, the waiter brought a more expensive wine that was available. Not exactly one that I would prefer, but I gave up on trying my choices, available on the wine list but not in the cellar.

The dessert, a panqueca of dulce de leche was just edible.

The quality of the service was absolutely terrible. We had to wait at least 15 minutes every time we needed to talk to our waiter. It was a Sunday lunch and the restaurant was full. Thus, they were obviously unstaffed.

After another 15 minutes we finally could order an expresso coffee and the bill, that took another 10 minutes to arrive.

Total time for a simple sunday luncheon: 3 hours and 25 minutes. Total bill for a couple and two kids: US$ 260 (10.900 Uruguayan Pesos). (The wine cost was around US$ 50.) And after all that the waiter asked me if he could add a tip!!! I obviously didn’t accept.

The fact that the bill had the total in Uruguayan Pesos, American Dollars, Euros and Brazilian Reais demonstrates that their main focus is on tourists, that usually cannot compare their quality with other local restaurants that serve the exceptionally good Uruguayan meat, one of the very best in the world, exported to several countries at a...

I spent two weeks in Uruguay in pursuit of the best steak the country has to offer. Montevideo was my last stop and after some Google research, "Garcia" popped up a lot, people claiming their steak was the best they've ever had and so on. So there was a certain amount of pressure built up. Uruguay had performed extraordinarily well so far and I needed to know if "Garcia" truly is the golden standard, the Uruguayan GOAT. So I did what I had to do, rang up the place and got a reservation. Service was great from the start. We got a couple of appetizers and some Tannat, so far so good. The waiter suggested we'd both order the "baby beef garcia" so we'd both end up with a nice big chunk of meat on our table - I loved his style and wholeheartedly agreed. The anticipation grew as I was smelling the "parrilla" with all kinds of meat stacked upon it. I could then see the waiter coming towards our table, it had to be it. I braced myself, cut into the steak to check its color. It was perfect. There was only one thing left to do. I took my first bite. Tenderness, juices, the diverse roasting flavors from the grill - it was all there. My expectations were smashed, it truly was the Uruguayan GOAT. Well done Garcia, I take my...