La Rosa - Cafayate

The menu is quite strange, it has no first courses on the à la carte menu except empanadas. My wife had the set menu that llama carpaccio had, which was very good. Everything else we had was obviously disgusting. The worst was the...matambres, the two of us ordered the meat, was hard and neither really hammered nor cooked. The Gristle and excessive fat were rolled up on such a piece and very hard. Mostly, matambres are cooked rolled so that the cook can add interesting fillings. Here it seems that the meat, which is served as a “reducción”, was cooked and the resulting fatty water formed the reduction. My was accompanied by some reheated potatoes so had lost all advertised delicacies and my son had what on the menu as zucchini, lentils and onion, which had no zucchini to speak and was stone cold from the refrigerator. We both sent our Matambres back, my son replaced his with an ojo de bife, ordered ‘jugoso’ that arrived on the outside gray, but completely raw for most of the inside, so likely meat taken directly from the refrigerator. In a country that serves so fantastic meat, a supposedly chic hotel that cannot cook steak is exceptional. My wife had the cavatelli pasta with lamb that had no lamb, only lamb fat and some pieces of bone; not beautiful and completely untenable. We ordered the invoice and left; they had the good grace to remove the two Matambres. The set menu comes with two glasses of wine and for white you can only the Torrontés ‘extreme Blends’, which is very thin and tasteless. It is tragic that waiters are clearly aware that there is a problem, other diners (including hotel guests) are not happy yet, but the administration allows this terrible food to be served when Cafayate is full of excellent restaurants. The service is more haphazard and charmless. The only good news is we weren't in the hotel.

Very nice and chic restaurant. They have an excellent combination of “cocina andina” with a touch of sofisticated restaurant. Our waiter Alvaro a native Salteñan was excellent both in food and wine recommendations.

The beauty and sophistication of the property cries out five stars, but the food just doesn 't live up to expectations. In general, I award three stars if the restaurant serves food that I could conceivably create myself; four stars if I learn something new, either...about technique or taste; and five stars for event restaurants, restaurants that shouldn 't be missed. In these terms, La Rosa is definitely a three-star restaurant. We started with llama carpaccio. It was very good, but the restaurant did nothing to elevate it above carpaccio. Had I fresh llama, I could certainly create this dish. Then we tried a trio of tapas (which turned out to be toasts with various toppings . The duck was somewhat dry; the salmon with goat cheese was elevated by the quality of the cheese, but in the end it was just salmon and cream cheese. And, frankly, I forget what the last tapa was. For the main course, we both get steaks. My wife got the rib-eye and I got the prime rib. I really have no idea what the difference between these two cuts is. Mine had a bone. Beyond that, they looked, tasted, and were priced identically. The first problem with the steak is that they brought it to table on a red-hot, sizzling platter. I mean, REALLY sizzling. Nice presentation! However, not very practical: anyone wearing expensive clothing, and especially anyone wearing something white, is going to be understandably upset when their clothing is spattered by a sputtering micro-spray of scalding-hot fat. Second, the steak simply isn 't in the same league as others you can find in Argentina. One of the best steaks I 've ever had can be found in another restaurant right in Cafayate. The steak was cooked perfectly, but was rather tough, lacked flavor, and didn 't have the distinctive depth and beefiness of rib cuts. Third, it was quite expensive in comparison to better steaks I 've had elsewhere. Finally, the sides that were served with the meat were fairly uninteresting. My wife was served with a large slice of grilled yam or pumpkin ... the lemon-flavored cream it was served with really brought it up to another level, and I would recommend it. But she was also served grilled eggplant, which didn 't really make sense with the yam, and was dry in any case. I got potatoes. They were potatoes. For dessert, we shared a goat 's milk flan. The goat 's milk didn 't shine through in any distinctive or interesting way. The flan simply tasted like garden variety flan. It was good, but again not excellent. Our wine was a Malbec from their Fincas Notables line. It was also good, not great. I thought it lacked some of the intensity and vibrant nose that you find in other Malbecs. Again, this is a lovely place for dinner. Our server was very nice (although he sort of forgot about us at the end of the meal .. . The food, however, was not at the level one would expect for such a renowned property.

My boyfriend and I ate at this restaurant as we were staying at the hotel and it had such a high rating on trip advisor. Sadly we were pretty disappointed with the experience overall considering it is supposed to be an upmarket restaurant one...of the most expensive places we’ve been to whilst in Argentina. Here is a summary of the issues: we asked if we could order some of the specials that were written on the chalk boards in the restaurant including the bife de chorizo. We were told “no” by the staff (no explanation given and instead told to order the rib eye as it was the same. Why have those dishes written on the chalk board if you can’t order them? Or at least explain why. I appreciate we can’t speak much Spanish but none of the staff could speak more than a few words of English which again, I think is surprising given the hotel where the restaurant is supposed to be 5 star... I ordered a prawn pasta (I’m a pescatarian so eat fish but not meat and it came out with the prawns wrapped in ham. No mention of this on the menu which I was surprised about. Explained the issue to the staff who said they would be able to re do the dish without meant. However the pasta was still pretty bad the second time no flavour, dry, not cooked in cream or cheese as described on the menu. Due to our limited language skills and having send the food back once already I decided not to bother complaining again my boyfriends steak came out over cooked (he asked for medium rare which he had ordered in other restaurants in Argentina and has come out perfect so he sent it back but the second one came out over cooked again. Again we found it hard to communicate with staff so we didn’t bother complaining again no discount or any consideration was given to the fact we had both sent our food back. A 5 star restaurant would usually, to show their apologies, apply a discount of some sort to the bill or maybe a free drink the restaurant charges for the bread you receive at the start of the meal which I think is a cheap move considering every single other restaurant we went to in Argentina that provided bread did so free of charge. They should at least flag that the bread will be added to the bill, especially we we asked for more bread (we were really hungry! we were not alerted to the fact we would be charged for both portions shady move which you wouldn’t expect from somewhere this upmarket When we checked out of the hotel they tried to charge us for a second meal at the restaurant when we only had one meal there (was so bad the first time we didn’t return! Overall I would avoid the restaurant and head out into Cafayate town for much better quality food and service !

Given the excellent reviews that this restaurant, la Rosa at Patios de Cafayate, has received on TripAdvisor, we were expecting great things. I am afraid that it fell well below expectations. The restaurant and the hotel with which it is associated are off-shoot enterprises operated...by el Esteco bodega and vineyard. The setting amongst the vines is idyllic. It was one of the five restaurants at which we had dined on our trip to Argentina. I am afraid to say that it was the one about which we were least convinced. Points for consideration are as follows: 1. I often like a pre-dinner beer. Unfortunately, the only Salta beer that was available was a dark beer (Salta Negra . I don’t like dark beer, but I drank it as there was no alternative. They must have run out of the other types. 2. There are two sittings for dinner (a bit like being at school! at 20:00 and 21:30. I really do not like this type of arrangement. The table should be available for the full evening if the diners wish, even if it is not fully utilised. One can’t help but feel a certain amount of pressure to finish the meal. 3. We had reserved a table for the 20:00 sitting. When we got to the restaurant at 20:00 sharp, the restaurant still not open. It did not open for another 10-15 minutes. Given that we were supposed to be time-limited as to our table’s availability, this was irritating. 4. The dining room was rather small and cramped. The evenings were cool, so the temperature was not suitable for eating outside. I do not know whether there were heat lamps (these would have been necessary , but I did not see anybody eating outside. 5. Many of the TripAdvisor reviewers have commented on the views of the mountains from the restaurant. This is true during daylight hours but is irrelevant after nightfall. 6. One reviewer (at least has commented on the attire of the staff. I entirely agree. The Maîtresse D was in jeans, but this was not too bad in itself. However, the (all-male serving staff were wearing white shirts and aprons, but these were inadequate cover for the jeans and well-used trainers that they were wearing. 7. We did manage to obtain our bottle of wine quickly, but thereafter progress was slow. Admittedly, we were competing against a table of 12 who managed to enter just before us by queuing at the restaurant door. We did get the menu fairly quickly, but thereafter it took a little time to place our order. Our impression of the menu was that it was not terribly exciting or interesting, and it showed too much of a bias towards vegetarianism. There was little that really took our fancy. We eventually obtained our first courses at 20:50, theoretically leaving us 40 minutes to finish our meal in its entirety. 8. To the food at last. My wife started with the llama carpaccio followed by the shredded duck as her main course. She had some difficulty finding any duck, concealed, as it was, under the salad. The salad was terribly overdressed with balsamic vinegar. I had the gambettas in bacon followed by ravioli stuffed with cheese. I do not think that the bacon added a great deal to the gambettas. The pasta was pretty awful. Instead of being light and sensuous, it was hard and stodgy. My wife took a strawberry ice cream for her desert which she said was the best part of her meal. But it’s a bit difficult to mess up a (commercially-obtained? ice cream. 9. Other reviewers have remarked on the ‘excellence’ of the wine list. Well, in my view, it is not excellent. It is very limited. As is to be expected, it only lists el Esteco wines but there is no information about the vintages. We chose a bottle of el Estero Finca Notables Malbec, supposedly the best Malbec on the list. The millesime was 2015 and the cost was ARP1111. Not extortionate, but we had had much better for a lesser price. 10. We finished our dinner shortly before 22:00. It was a pity that our last evening in northwest Argentina had proved something of a disappointment. I believed that other diners who had booked for the 21:30 sitting were being delayed.