Gymnopedies H.
Yelp
1/2 star for ambience. This is a restaurant that once was considered among the best for seafood in Rio but which now is sadly lacking in its quality of food, its preparation, and its service. Our party of four was met first with unspecified wines offered by the glass- a bad sign. Then we ordered a 40 piece ceviche platter that was really quite good and raised my hopes. Our main courses completely fell apart however. My wife was supposed to receive grilled snapper dressed with a basil, oil, and tomato sauce. She got dry, un-sauced snapper. Our guest, on my recommendation ordered salt-crusted salmon only to receive - nothing. The staff had not taken his order and thought the ceviche had been his entrée. His date ordered the same fish as my wife but received a snapper in the salt crust, which no one had ordered. And I received my requested "fantasia" of grilled seafood which turned out to be dry, tasteless, and wholly uninspiring. In other words, the highlight of our entrées was that at least one out of the four got what he ordered, and three out four got something. The one who got nothing then had to wait a half hour to get a piece of grilled salmon, which was STILL not what he ordered. And to top it off, this piece of fish, like the others, was dry and tasteless. A shit show to be sure.
You enter to a beautiful restaurant with multiple tanks housing assorted crustaceans, none of which I saw being fished out to cook. They all seem to be for show, and judging from my dinner, what is being prepared is frozen seafood. Either that or the cooks are worse at their craft than total novices pulled off the street, given an apron and toque, and told to grill seafood.
Here's the deal- when we went, the dollar went a long way in Rio. Our dinner, such as it was, was cheap. Even so, if I had it to do over again, there is no way I would go. Having heard this is where we went, our family chastised us for not asking where to get good seafood. They said the place had fallen into hard times, corruption and even crime, which I of course cannot confirm but instead recommend you go do your research before wasting an evening ordering a dinner and being lucky if anything arrives. Later that night, my wife and the friend who had to wait for the wrong dish, both got violently sick. Was it Satyricon? Who knows, but given the complete mess they made of almost every single thing they did, I suspect it was. So just stay away from this place and search out any other option.