Santa Maria Del Sur

Santa Maria is one of local restaurants and I've held off going for a special occasion so we went tonight to celebrate a new job. Sadly our experience was not great and we left feeling disappointed and like we'd spent a lot on an unimpressive meal. The stand out parts of our meal were the salsa criolla and the smoked red pepper. We ordered chips - steak and chips being a winning combination - but they were overly large, under cooked and no better than what I can create myself at home. The steaks - the main feature of the meal - were perfectly good but didn't stand out for me or my partner,

We went to visit a house as we are looking to buy in Battersea and ended up going to Santa Maria Del Sur as it looked busy and the meat being cooked looked fantastic. Personally we never heard of this restaurant before, so I am surprised to hear it was in the F Word, and even more surprised it gets bad reviews. We hadn't booked so we ended up in the only table available right next ot the toilet. But the food and service was amazing. I really enjoyed our meal, the chorizo sausage, the cheese was DELICIOUS, and my fillet was AWESOME so were the chips which looked very fresh. And do not get me started on my dessert DULCE DE LECHE cheesecake -it ws yummy. Our waitress was adorable, friendly, and smiley, and we felt no pressure to leave and had a very good evening. I definitely hope to find out dream home aorund Battersea so Santa Maria Del Sur can become my local.
ps: As for the cost, I am unsure where some of the people writting reviews generally go to, but £134 (for 2)for starters, main, dessert and 2 bottles of good wine, is very reasonable.... As for the tip I happily gave an extra £10 to my waitress, because it was totally refreshing to have such a good service in LND.....

Name: Estela
Location: London

Dear Sir , Madam.

My name is Gerardo and I am the manager of Santa Maria del Sur. I write this in response to some of the reviews I’ve read recently in several sites (some of them are, in reality, the same review, posted under different names in different sites)

For those of you who wrote those fantastic emails and words of encouragement and compliments; a huge thank you.
Unfortunately, bad reviews sound louder, so I am mainly writing to those whose reviews weren’t what we hoped for, and for those who are thinking of coming to visit us and upon reading these reviews, are thinking “ Oh dear..it doesn’t sound good”.

First of all, I am really truly sorry if your experience at Santa Maria was not what you expected.
I could sit here and write a defense of my restaurant but you’ve got your views and I, of course, respect that. Some of the points made are valid and help us get better, and on others I guess we’ll have to agree to disagree.
However, there’s one particular comment which I read and I will 100 % refute and it’s what prompted me to write this. The success some people refer to, has not gone to our heads and we care greatly about our customers and their comments, particularly if they are not good.

We are not a fancy restaurant or a flash, pretentious venue in the West End. We are a local restaurant in Battersea. That’s how we started and that’s the way we like it and how we’ll remain. Success or not success. Therefore, our customers and neighbors are all we have. New and existing ones; and them leaving happy is all we care about.

Since December last year when we appeared on the F Word, we’ve seen a dramatic surge in the amount of customers we cater for. Our business changed and the way we used to do things had to change. It’s possible that somewhere along the way we made mistakes, or that on a given night, things didn’t go according to plan. When that happens, our customers have the right to be upset, but I can assure you, so are we.

But whil

I`m sure many people visit this restaurant all because of the F-word, we certainly did. I am going to be as honest as possible. First impressions were reasonable, staff were reasonably welcomming. Pleasant music could be heard in the background. The Chorizo starter, again, reasonable. My wife had the Provoleta, but, although tasty, it was hard work, as the cheese was basically just melted to the serving dish. So far, not so f-word fantastic. For the main course i had Bife de lomo con guarnición, a thick steak served with just a little garnish. With this I had the butterbean side dish. The steak was cooked as I had requested. The side dish was very very small. It was a good job my wife had chips, as there were plenty of them to go around and were chunky and tasty. My wife had the tuna steak and, as usual, she chose a fantastic dish. Very, very tasty and succulent. My son was the only one to have dessert, caramalised bread pudding. We all agreed that it was not worth the money. Tasteless and soggy. Be aware that when the bill eventually arrives, there will be an added 12.5% gratuity added. I prefer choosing wether a gratuity is to be left, and it would unlikely be as much as 12.5%. All in all a reasoable, but expensive, night out.

What a terrible experience Santa Maria Del Sur was Easter Monday. I had booked a table for my girlfriend and me, to celebrate her birthday. I had made the reservation for six pm and was told we are very busy; you can have a table but only for one and a half hour. This was ok, but we arrived at the restaurant at 5.55pm and they did not open the door until 6:10pm leaving us and others to stand outside on a horrible grey pavement and not a nice stretch of the Queenstown road. I should have known the night was going to be bad right then.
We were seated by a professional guy but no smiles or welcome, or sorry to leave you standing outside a main busy road; and for opening late.
The grill hadn’t even been lit! As most people know it takes a grill at least half an hour to forty five minutes to reach the correct temperature. It seemed they were still preparing to open as customers were in their seats ordering. Reallybad ethos.
We ordered, I had the tuna steak at 6 15pm to start and asked for it to be left pink inside. It arrived at 6 45pm overcooked. We had waited 30 minutes for our starters; I didn’t say anything. Then I asked for my fillet steak to be cooked medium, it arrived charred outside and red rare inside. When I cut in to the chips oil seeped out of them, obviously the oil hadn’t been heated and was cold when the chips were put in.
Then the insult to injury, the head guy comes and asks me if I mind moving from our table to ones at the back. He says he knows the grill was late in firing up, right there I reminded him also that they opened late, he then says “oh you came early.” “I said no I got here for 6pm which was the time I was told to arrive at” he ignored that and said we can have dessert if we want to but at the table in the back.
Now it seemed they didn’t really want to open on Easter Monday, it was a half hearted attempt to run a professional busy restaurant, greed has got the better of them.£9 for indifferent service, £75 no dessert and 1 drk.

Jumped on Santa Maria Del Sol website to make a reservation, my time was unfortunately unavailable, though it showed a table for lunch. As mentioned on the site, I called the restaurant to see if other tables were available.
When I got through I asked the lady for a table for Saturday she said she is fully booked until May.
The website shows plenty availability on a variety of dates, after mentioning this to her she told me i shouldn't 'sneakily' check on her.
Being in customer service my self I made sure I was nothing but nice and was simply informing her that if she is full, she may want to close the bookings on her site off. Her response was "why did you call me, try book it then - you still won't get it)

To be honest, there is a great Argentinan steak house on Northcote rd, called La Pampa Grill - Always GREAT! Steaks and service.
I think I’m going to skip the whole TV hype and stick to my local, where at least I won't be hung up on, nor be refused a table after booking.
If this is the service you receive on the phone, I’d hate to actually know how they treat you once you are through the doors.

Where to start .... My Fiance and I didn't actually get to sample any food at Santamaria but my review is based on our experience of the staff and management.

Having booked a table two months in advance for Saturday 30th January 2010, we set out for our 18:30 reservation at 17:00 (we live 1 hour drive away but decided we would try this restaurant following their appearance on The F Word) and unfortunately hit some very heavy traffic coming into London, owing to roadworks.

We called the restaurant to advise that we would be dining, but that we were already running 10 minutes late, but would keep them updated (which we did-twice).

Eventually we arrived 45 minutes late and were 'greeted' by a very rude waitress who abruptly informed us that 'The manager deals with this sort of thing', pointing us to a gentleman with long hair and earrings at the counter.

Hungry, tired and generally harrassed by the traffic situation, we were looking forward to a good meal and a glass of Coke, when we were utterly astonished to be told by the gentleman that the restaurant's policy is to wait no longer than 15 minutes for their customers, and that he had given our table away.

We politely explained that we had not only contacted the restaurant thorughout, but that we had driven specially from outside of London, for the better part of 2 hours and that we were assured on the phone that our table would be held (which was greeted with a shrug of the shoulders).

The worst part about out romantic evening out was being offered what seemed to be a staff table next to the toilet, if we "still wished to dine" at his establishment, leaving us feeling insulted and publicly humiliated (other diners looked shocked).

We 'dined' at 10pm that night - our local KFC wasn't our first choice but at least they didn't hold a stop-watch while we took the money out of our wallets to pay, and I have to say the Hotwings were the best I ever tasted.

i visited on my sunday for my birthday, after seeing gordon ramsay say steak was great. It was not good meat was poor qaulity lots of grissle £18 without any sides. We fine and happy to pay for good food but £75 for 3 for below average meat and salad that was going brown. when we said we did not enjoy they blamed on the way we asked for it to be cooked, one was rare one medium rare and one medium!?? awful place trading on the bit of TV they got doubt they have repeat customers

I ate at this restaurant expecting a great steak. I was dissapointed to be honest. I ordered a sirloin (which wasn't cheap) medium rare and it came medium well. The waiting staff were not ammused when I sent it back. The steaks really were nothing out of the ordinary and certainly didn't justify the pricetag.

I would avoid getting swept up with the whole 'it's an Argetenian steakhouse' thing and look at it for what it is. For the money we paid, we really did expect more. Sophie steakhouse a much safer bet for a good steak.

Won't go back.

I was so looking forward to eating here, and on arrival, all seemed good. Nice table, friendly waiter, and yes, being a Monday night, not hugely busy but a nice atmosphere. We ordered our food and it all started to go downhill from there. The starters arrived within 2 mins, on silver platters that were better suited to a camping trip, the ham was cut too thickly and was served all folded up on a plate with a mass produced 'dip' and some tinned artichoke hearts. We were hurried in to finishing the starters because our steaks were ready apparently. I would have thought that 2 medium rare steaks could have been cooked once we had eaten our starters, but that was not the case. The chips were not real and covered in some fake flavour and over crunchy, the butter beans in garlic were so salty they were inedible and the tomato salad was clearly leftovers from lunch.

The steaks looked good but were slightly overdone and frankly, tasteless. By 10.30pm, other punters were leaving and the staff were clearing up, putting chairs on tables and the smell of disinfectant in the kitchen and bathrooms was overwhelming. They clearly wanted us out as quickly as possible and we were happy to oblige. But they did put our leftovers in to a doggie bag as requested and Ruby the dog has been enjoying the leftovers this morning. For £85, she had better be!!

Sadly, and as a local to the area, I will not be going back or recommending this restaurant to any of my other friends. Sorry.

Battersea Resident, Karina

I've been to Santa Maria twice and had an excellent experience on both occasions. Last time I went on a Sunday with my boyfriend.
We were served some bread and crackers with a cheese flavoured butter (as in Argentina restaurants bring bread and butter to the table as part of the service).
For starters we had empanadas and a choripán (which was fantastic!)
We ordered the bife ancho (rib-eye steak). Mine was medium rare and my boyfriend's was rare exactly as ordered. The taste of the meat was fantastic and the steaks were served with a little green salad on the side.
The service is kind and friendly.
I would absolutely reccomend it!

Excellent service

A must for good steaks, reasonably priced.

We went on Monday - live music.

Wide menu and good choice of wines.

Very friendly atmosphere.