Indy C.

Iberia Restaurant

My wife and I have been going to this place for a few years now. It's really a nice cozy place to spend the evening eating tapas and drinking nice wine. However, on our most recent visit, we experienced what is definitely a management shift in customer service. They now charge a 19% service charge - which apparently is written on the menu, but we overlooked that. No big deal here - but as others mention it's a tough sell to pay 19% on top of an expensive bottle of wine. The service really doesn't scale depending on price of the bottle - so we personally feel its unreasonable to ask customers to pay 19% of service.

What really got us this time was when my wife asked for hot water w/ lemon. Subsequently she asked for honey... When our bill came, we were being charged $4.50 for "tea". We disputed this claim w/ our waiter, and he was sympathetic, but after conferring w/ the manager - he said it's his (the manager's) policy to charge for hot water. Our service staff never mentioned this to us! Dont get me wrong, the service was typical Iberia service (but not bad). We asked to speak to the manager, our waiter went to see if he can talk, then he informs us that the manager is busy and cant see us. Wow! We rarely ever have issues w/ restaurants, this by far is the worst experience ever! $4.50 for hot water give me a break.

I think the tipping point was the fact the manager couldnt make time for his customer, and additionally when we got up to go find the manager, he had just left! This really puts Iberia off our recommended restaurant list (which is an extremely small list). The only way we would not go back to Iberia is if the management team is changed. Manager Jose Luis Relinque must be changed. Theyve lost our confidence extremely poor customer service, lack of common decency, and just purely profit driven has put this cozy hole in the wall out in the dark for us!