Here in Santa Maria, plastered on every cap, t-shirt and available piece of merchandise is the local equivalent of “Hakuna Matata”, Cape Verde’s unofficial motto “No Stress”. And that is exactly why we come here, to detoxify from the rigours of work and family life at home, to enjoy some sun, sand and good food.

However it’s a phrase that starts to grate when repeated over and over as an explanation as to why your food is turning up late and cold, or just not turning up at all.

We had high hopes for George’s and I was looking forward to including it as a Santa Maria Restaurant Review. On our first night we had tried to get in, but the outside area was full, so we booked (via Facebook Messenger) for a couple of days later. All seemed well at first: The outside eating area was full, with only two reserved tables free, one of which was ours.

The Enemy Within

But the problem lurked on the inside of the restaurant where there were two (unconnected) large groups who clearly had been seated at about the same time, and by the looks of it about 15 minutes before us.

Suffice it to say that our orders were only arriving after the 30-odd people seated inside, and they were getting very rowdy at the continued lack of progress of their meals. This was punctuated by a significant minority of them gathering outside the restaurant for a loud discourse about the lack of food, accompanied by wine and cigarettes. Every subsequent excursion was that little bit louder and smokier.

The final insult was when we asked for the bill, the one person with a calculator was individually working out the bill for every person on a table of 20, seemingly calculating everyone’s share down to the nearest escudo. We were given one (between us) scoop of “no stress” ice cream as some sort of apology.

The Food

Could things have been better if the one person working in the kitchen had had a little help? Or if we had turned up on another day?

It’s usually the main courses that I make a mistake on, but this time it was the starter. Who serves frozen prawns on a desert island? While the butter and garlic sauce was tasty, and mopped up with some reasonable bread, the prawns were limp and flabby. On the other hand (Mrs N’s choice) of Tuna Carpaccio was excellent.

I had indulged myself with an interim course of left arm by the time the main turned up, but was still ravenously hungry. My Serra (a bit like swordfish) was tasty and well cooked, but the accompaniments were, in the main, lazy, cold and tasteless. The same can be said for the grilled prawns in shells (possibly fresh) which were enjoyable, but let down by plain white rice and cold fried potatoes. The salsa that accompanied the dishes lifted them a bit, but could have done with a bit more bite. Basically, whatever you order (and this is regardless of what the menu says), you get the same basic pattern of carbs and veg dished out of a vat, with your choice of main dish laid out next to it.

Had the kitchen not been completely backed up and the service a bit more on it, maybe this would have been a pleasant if unmemorable dinner. As it was, we were pretty much abandoned by the staff, given patchy food, and treated to a litany of Italian swear words and second-hand smoke.

At least the wine was good, this time the white version of the local CV favourite Chã do Fogo, but I’m not sure George’s can take much credit for that, especially as it was more expensive that at Santa Maria’s fine dining extravaganza, Marea (review here)

Not the most expensive meal so far, but by no means the cheapest and definitely not worth the money

Conclusion

Rating: 3/5

George’s: https://m.facebook.com/koffakoffa10/