NOT the way you want your dinner to go while in the Porto area - 1 of 2…read more
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Note that this is a LOW 3 stars. I am not happy about writing this review.
O Antunes is one of those places that comes up on the list of long running restaurants in Porto. In Lisbon, a lot of them are on that street slightly east of Rossio where the menu hawking is aggressive. You may see that here in the Ribeira, but you don't see it in the center.
I had attempted to eat here last year with a local and it was closed on that day. It was in a smaller locale, on the other side of the same street. Photos speak to that. They are now in a larger and newer locale.
I scoured the menu and saw the usual fish and chicken dishes. I did not want the salmao (salmon) because this is not America's Northwest and I might have liked espadarte (swordfish), but they don't offer it. I settled on a slab of bife de atun - a filleted tuna steak.
It was preceded by a bowl of soup, which is very typical here, but I did not follow up with dessert. There was a reason for that.
The waiter (instead of "politically correct" male server) was okay initially but, like so many in the white shirt and black slacks who do this work in factory-like restaurants in Portugal's bigger cities, he was big on one word answers and amiss on anything that needed more elaboration. The food was delivered fairly quickly.
The food at O Antunes was good, but this was a standard platter, with a standard presentation, throughout the area. Tuna as a big filet is better than one might think, and it featured the thin pink line across the center, which means it was optimally cooked, but it's a simple and healthy but not particularly exciting dish. I'd say the food is about 4 stars.
The fact that they don't bring on the avalanche of bread, cheese, olives, and pates was a welcome relief. That gets 5 stars for bucking this annoying custom that fools many first time visitors to Portugal. I thought that would set the pace for the remainder of the experience.
The newer locale is spacious and airy, albeit spartan. It has a bar where the desserts are behind a case. I'd say that the setting gets about 3.5 stars.
The service might have stayed at 3 stars. At the end of the meal, the bill arrived. I showed a card and the hand held P.O.S. arrived (that means point of sale). I noticed several P.O.S.s with different colors toward the administrative counter. The card ran and, right before the receipt rolled out, the P.O.S. wasn't shown to me. It appeared that the waiter had pushed a button or two with lighting speed and I got the receipt showing that I had opted for the conversion and that it had an additional 4% mark up. I did not opt for anything. I asked him to reverse it and start over. He pretended he didn't know what I was talking about. My credit card converts the Euro at the mid-market rate and another bank need not be involved for a markup.
This is not about the 4% as much as it about the principle. More than half the restaurants do NOT do this ... they process in Euro, which is what you want. Those that do show you the P.O.S. so you can choose. (Choose the local currency, and then reject the conversion.) This can really add up and leads a person to wonder if merchants have an "incentive" to do this. I don't know. Spread over a lot of transactions, this could start looking like "Office Space." Is this the new "bread, cheese, and olives" in Portugal?
I told him I'd wait for the owner. (Translation: "I want to speak with the manager.") Guests could probably see I was getting up a few times and irked. That's good.
The manager finally understood the problem rather quickly and wanted to resolve it. The waiter, who was a little too short with everything, seemed to have enough time on his hands to listen to this exchange. The manager computed the difference between the bill with the prevailing exchange rate and with the mark-up. He handed me that difference in change. He mentioned that "we're here for you," meaning all their guests; however, that mantra needs to be passed on to everyone in the restaurant. Also, the younger guy bussing the table, a transplant to the area, was quite a bit more likable than the waiter.
If in the center and wanting a traditional Portuguese meal, I might explore other restaurants or return to the reliable stalwart that is Abadia, which also has good food but has always provided mild mannered service that I really appreciate.
