Malhadinha Wine Gourmet - Beja

The Pousada Convento front desk in Beja highly recommended this restaurant it was a good recommendation as we probably would not have discovered it on our own. First, the ambiance. Almost enough to say it was at a winery a quiet, pleasant country setting with glass walls looking out to the winery grounds and the garden immediately outside where peacocks foraged. The service was excellent attentive, timely and effective. The couvert had fresh out of the oven rolls, olive oil, salt and butter. We had three courses. A starter of mackerel and egg plant caviar, the veal loin and veal steak and two desserts one fig and the other a strawberry/almond cake. We were warned the deserts would take up to 15 minutes to prepare allowing a nice break to enjoy our wine. All were excellent well prepared, well presented with great flavors. A bottle of their very good red wine topped it off. Note that this restaurant is in the fine dining arena and that comes with a price, but for the quality of the dishes is not out of line with other fine restaurant. After lunch one of the wine maker gave us a tour of the property, explained their wine making process and offfered three wines for tasting nicely done.

When we arrived at this wonderful winery we went on a drive around the estate , we saw the vines , learnt all about how the grapes are grown and picked we also saw black pigs ,cattle and learnt about how the winery is as sustainable as it possibly can . We then visited the winery and saw all the processes the grapes go through and how the various wines are produced . Following a wine tasting session we moved into the very stylish restaurant ,which looked over the beautiful countryside . Our meals were superb I had the black pork dish for my main course which was excellent , and of course our meal was accompanied by wonderful wine . Some of the family who run the winery were there celebrating a birthday and they very kindly bought us over some of the extremely delicious birthday cake .It was so lovely to meet the family who are so passionate about the fabulous winery they run . We all agreed our visit to the winery was superb in every way and we would definitely visit again .

Persuaded by good reviews we chose to dine here. Unfortunately our experience wasn 't as enjoyable. When you arrive at any restaurant, particularly one with Michelin aspirations, you expect a friendly welcome or smile which unfortunately wasn 't the case for us. We 'd visited many of the good wineries Michelin star restaurants in the Alentejo region and met wonderful friendly people prior to our visit here so expected similar. When we entered an unsmiling stern young lady who was to show us to our table repeatedly asked questions regarding our booking other things, such as Did you find it hard to get a reservation? When we replied that it hadn 't been difficult and asked why she 'd inquired she simply sneered and said it takes months sometimes. We couldn 't comprehend her motivation as it didn 't appear as though she was trying to make friendly conversation, rather the opposite, as though she was trying to imply we should be grateful for being 'allowed ' a reservation. This was one of a number of things that she said, none of which was Welcome . Our party of four all felt she was being rude. It 's a shame as that marred the rest of the evening for us, particularly when she was in attendance. As an aside, when we returned to our hotel and expressed our disappointment to the friendly owner she told us that even as a local she had been made to feel the same when she visited. So perhaps some people just don 't look right to this one particular lady. All the remaining staff were extremely friendly, cheerful and efficient and the food was good with pretty (Michelin style) presentation. The wines were excellent and the owners even took time to introduce themselves at the table. Unfortunately none of us will return as a restaurant needs more than a nice view and good food to be enjoyable, you also need to made to feel welcome and valued as a customer. Being in the wine business we chose this restaurant as were interested primarily in the wines however we preferred the restaurants at Quinta do Quetzal and Herdade de Grous who were more welcoming.

Excellent restaurant. Atrentive and professional staff, excellent food, many a review of classical regional dishes. Very nice wine list, based on the excellent Malhadinha wines

It 's clear from the menu and food presentation that Malhadinha aspires to be a chic place, worthy of a Michelin mention. However, we found the experience overall rather disappointing. The food was generally good and well presented, though lacked flavors that set it apart, and in addition the experience was really marred by a lot of small things that show that the restaurant staff are not ready for Malhadinha to be worth a trip. The place is quite out of the way, with dirt road and all, and as it it we would not take the trouble and go again. Here are some of the many smaller things that bothered us, and that we are not used to find in higher end restaurants: we mentioned right after arriving that there were no more hand towels in the bathrooms when we left later on there still were none the place is smalll, and in this type of restaurant a waiter usually remembers who ordered what we were a couple with a kid, but the waiter was still who ordered xy? lame wine and water bottle were placed on a counter away from the table we had to ask several times for our glasses to be refilled the menu is a simple single use sheet of paper, which is fine, but when we asked for the menu again for desert to got creased ones with fat stains on it in a snack bar ok, not here in the end we asked for an espresso machiato answer: 'oh, I need to see if we have milk ' (luckily they did) I probably forgot a few other other lapses, but in all this was nice a nice experience to befit the aspirations of the place far more attention to details is needed