Leonid Z
Google
First time we booked a table here for lunch on Saturday of a Carnaval day. Everything was just impeccable: food, service, atmosphere. Middle-aged maître-d-hotels with their courteous service and sense of humour. I would have put 5-stars without thinking a second, if making a review just based on that lunch. And this is why we also decided to book for dinner at 9:00 p.m. the next day – Sunday, even though it was taking at least 30 minutes to get to Nido from our hotel. They normally don’t accept reservations for Sunday dinner, - one of the maître told us- but for us they will make an exception and will keep the same table for us. But when we came next day at 9 everything was completely different. There were several other tables occupied, but the restaurant was more than half-empty. Different waiter and different maître serving. But, OK, in a place like this, personalities shouldn’t influence the level of service, should they? I do speak Portuguese, it being my not native language, for sure I make mistakes plus Brazilian version of language is quite a bit different. But people do understand me. I had no problems in communicating with anyone at Nido the day before. Here on Sunday evening all understanding finished. I chose a bottle of red wine, tasted it and told the maître that I would prefer to drink this wine from wider glass. “Yes, like Burgundy”, - he answered. …And nothing happened. So, I had to call him again and tell him that I don’t only wish to drink this wine from different glasses, but I also expect him to bring them. My wife chose salad with figs and goat cheese for starter. It came without cheese. We didn’t react immediately, were more thinking it is us, who made a mistake reading the menu – this kind of salad is present in many restaurants we were eating lately in. In the end I looked-up the menu on Nido site and there is also said “cheese”. So, I called the maître again. Oh, yes, cheese, - he made a face. He went to the kitchen and brought us several pieces of cheese on a plate. To my surprise, in the end I also saw this salad being part of the bill. When I told him that up to my experience, no self-respecting restaurant will charge for this salad after all this mess, the answer was simply genius: but we brought you the cheese afterwards. Ok, I paid the bill and asked to call us a taxi. Well, I am sure I won’t say anything new, but Rio at night isn’t really the safest place in the world. So, a decent restaurant – again from my experience – should at least have a look what kind of car shows-up and make sure that the driver at least acknowledges he knows where he needs to drive the clients (maybe also make sure it is actually an authorized taxi having a license). The car we got was a size of a match box with all windows open because of lack of A/C and it was driven by a suspiciously looking fella of unknown age in a dirty trunk top, who didn’t show any signs of recognition when I first told and – afterwards – shown him the address. Feeling not comfortable, I turned around to the restaurant to ask them to sort it out and get us another taxi. But the restaurant had closed the doors right into my face and the lights inside went off. Finally, we got rid of that taxi and caught another one. But if we risked and went for a ride in the first one – clearly being tourists – where could he have taken us?
