I had dinner with my partner at Canelas de Coelho on Saturday the 16th of October. We had booked a table earlier in the week and when we arrived at the restaurant at 9pm all of the other tables were already occupied. When we booked our table we had been informed that the restaurant normally only accepts reservations until 8.30pm and afterwards works on a first come, first served queuing basis.... which seems a little odd for a restaurant with approximately 25 seats... but perhaps they intend for there to be a queue outside to create a certain image. The first thing we noticed, to our dismay, was that the restaurant permitted smoking. The table beside us (and as the space is very, very small and there are approximately 25 people in this very small space the distance between tables means that you are sitting very close to fellow diners) insisted on smoking between each and every course, as did most of the diners at the other tables in the restaurant, which we found highly inconsiderate and unpleasant. Unfortunately we hadn’t realised that this was the case, as it is now quite rare in most of Western Europe to come across a space, particularly one in which food is served, in which smoking is permitted, so we hadn’t thought to ask about this when reserving our table. When we left we noticed that there was indeed a small sticker displayed outside the restaurant (as there must be by law) to indicate that smoking was allowed however this was seemingly located as far away as possible from the entrance and in the most inconspicuous location possible, which is rather deliberately deceitful in my opinion. I would have preferred if we had been informed as to the situation regarding smoking when we booked our table. In addition to this the restaurant felt cramped, stuffy and hot; the owners clearly hadn’t installed a sufficiently powerful ventilation/air-conditioning system to deal with so many people, most of them smoking, in a very small space. As a result, the space which we had hoped would be intimate was rather uncomfortable. Not a good start to our meal. On the plus side the decoration, which was what had first made us want to visit the restaurant, was very attractive. The restaurant was recently completely refurbished, redesigned and rebranded having previously been a very traditional (and non-expensive) eatery. As we live in Porto and had passed the reopened restaurant frequently we were keen to try it out. The original tiled details on the walls had been maintained, which is a very nice touch and the olive green walls, stylish furniture and contemporary light fittings all combine successfully to create a well thought out look. The service, on the whole, was brisk and unremarkable. However we did wait much longer than we would have liked for our food to arrive and for our plates to be cleared once we had finished. The concept of selling wine by the glass is quite uncommon in Portugal and is an excellent idea. At 2 Euros a glass the red wine was a good choice. However my partner tried the green and rose wines offered by the glass and was unimpressed with both. The green wine she ordered was actually (bad) white wine and the rose wine tasted cheap. We ate the “cover” which was brought at the beginning of the meal (bread, olives, butter and vol-au-vents) which cost 5 Euros (4 for the nibbles, 1 Euro for the bread) which was all quite unimpressive. The vol-au-vents didn’t taste fresh at all; in fact I’m almost sure they were frozen, the bread was average and the olives were acidic and unpleasant. We then shared a “Roast scallop” dish as a starter. The menu itself was not at all sufficiently descriptive and the English translation of many of the dishes from the Portuguese was very poor indeed. The Portuguese read “Vieira assada” and although the wording of the menu was minimal it was certainly precise in that there was one single roast scallop (!) which was served with a creamy, bland leek/cheese sauce in the shell, with a sticky sesame flecked sauce artfully decorating the plate, making it rather difficult to enjoy the sauce with the food. Presentation was clearly favoured over taste with this dish-although the (one) scallop was juicy overall it really was a letdown as a dish, not to mention the price (6 Euros) is rather high for a starter in Portugal. For our main meal we had both ordered the duck with truffle risotto (12.50 Euros). Both courses seemed to have been somewhat delayed in the kitchen for whatever reason as we waited much too long for each dish to arrive; we had also ordered more wine which was forgotten by the waiter and had to be reordered. The duck itself was well cooked; tender and very tasty. However the “risotto” was a very bad choice as an accompaniment. The taste of the rice simply didn’t go with the duck not to mention the fact that the risotto was cold and soggy. In fact, it would have been better as a dessert; with a simple sprinkle of cinnamon it could very easily have passed for rice pudding, albeit not a very good one! The menu was badly designed and the good quality ingredients were mishandled to produce dishes which simply don’t impress on a taste level. We felt disappointed with our experience, uncomfortable due to the heat and smoke and really in a dreadful mood and only wanted to leave so we didn’t order dessert and instead just ordered coffee, paid the bill and went next door to the ice cream shop to have dessert! The fact that we couldn’t wait to leave the restaurant really sums up our feelings.
Overall it must be said that the atmosphere and the crowd were pretentious and combined with the smoking, which alienates non-smokers and makes them feel uncomfortable and unable to enjoy their meal, the bad quality of the food and the prices being charged, this restaurant simply doesn’t live up to the calibre of eatery it is clearly aspiring to be; we really felt that it is better suited to being a bar, not a restaurant.
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