Old Man & The Sea Restaurant, The

we travel to aruba 4 times a year for the past 19 years, my wife and i celebrated our 25 year anniversary in april. made reservation's in the private gazebo, surprised her renewing our vowel's, with robert gibson, who is a great guy!! and had our favorite singer lenny lake who is fantastic perform privately. all done at the private gazebo.
the restaurant that night was magical and romantic, the food excellent, the staff top notch. the owner very friendly.
we are very familiar with many restaurant's new and old, small and large, i rate this restaurant at the top of my list...
ricky grosser

Our experience at The Old Man & The Sea was one My family and i will always remember. From the Second we walked through the beautiful trees and flowered bushed we knew we were going to enjoy ourselves. we were met with exceptional service and great food and will definitely be back next year.

We ate at The Old Man and the Sea on night 4 of our honeymoon in Aruba. We had a perhaps our most impressive (of the trip) table in the sand, on the beach.

Seating was prompt (we had a reservation), and service very attentive. Due to our activities during the day, we got there after sunset, which I imagine would add
to the experience.

As with our experience with Marandi, Pinchos, and Passions, we found that 90% of the experience was the beach front seating. My wife order the double lobster tail dinner, and it was fantastic, but I credit that mostly to the lobster tails :)

My conclusion from trying most of top-5 beachfront locations is that you should do at least 1, but after that, perhaps better food can be had at locations without the beachfront seating, nice as it is (and without quite the price premium they can command)

We thoroughly enjoyed our dining experience at the Old Man & The Sea on March 11, 2010. The setting is gorgeous beginning with the walkway into the restaurant with the many plants, decorations and sheer curtains blowing in the breeze. Our reservation was at 6 pm, arriving in daylight and watched the sun set while we ate dinner. We were seated front and center, a few feet from the water, facing the beautiful beach on a comfortable bench with soft pillows and crisp white linens on our large table. To our left was the palapa hut, to our right were boats and the sunset. It was beautifully romantic as trees separated us from the other tables and provided privacy to talk and enjoy our meal while we dug our toes into the soft sand. The hand-painted menus and plates added to the ambiance. The "Crab & Avacado Salad" was delicious served over fresh mixed greens and the "Pear & Walnut Salad" was excellent. The "Macadamia Crusted Grouper" was fresh and cooked perfectly. The wine selection was great. Dessert was "Fried Oreos"--a house specialty that was sinfully good.
The dinner was relaxing, the staff was efficient and polite. Our waiter graciously took our picture multiple times throughout the evening.
Photos in the sunset came out phenomenal--assisted a couple taking their photo on the pier and they did the same for us. Lanterns were placed on the tables and torches were lit after the sun set. The restaurant did not appear to be toocrowded, it was a Thursday evening. Reservations were made online before arriving and confirmed by the hotel concierge as requested.
We loved this restaurant and highly recommend it. It is definately the most romantic dining anywhere!

We chose Aruba and OMATS to celebrate our 35th wedding anniversary..In Feb I had Amex Platinum Service make and confirm the private table on the island for March 22nd.5pm -8pm .the actual date of our anniversary.
This resv was confirmed on March 22. Later that day we received a call confirming our 8pm resv,,since we had a 5-8pm resv we told them they made an error..The manager called us back and said they booked someone else in the hut for 5-8pm..I explained our resv was made and confirmed and also gave them the persons name..they still would not budge. After a long long wait and help from american Express we received a call and told to come at 5..now it was already after 5pm so they agreed to allow us to have the hut from 6-9pm.....The waiters were fantastic,,the food was good except for the main course..but this place is for the romantic atmosphere not the food..no one from management came over to soothe us over and they then told us the hut was booked for 8:30 and we were rushed...I will most definitely never ever return or recomend this place...there are other beautiful restaurants with better food and a much better organization..

I have been watching the reviews on this restaurant for a number of months after we had dinned at OLD MAN AND THE SEA. Our experience was not a good one for a number of reasons. First we were not seated at the front as requested, since learning that because we were a party of 5 we were not "allowed" to sit up front as that area is "saved" for 2's.
We all ordered fish and it was overcooked. This was not our first time at this restaurant so we thought we knew what to expect. The service was not warm and friendly as it had been in the past.
The reason for my finally writing this review as I have been keeping a close eye on this restaurant (reading all the reviews) to see if things are getting any better as the setting is the best. One of the reviewers was most upset that he read so many glowing reports on this website and his experience was awful. Unfortunately, all of the negative reviews from late Jan and Feb 2010 disappeared and only the good ones remained. This is very misleading to people trying to do their homework on places to eat.
I felt compelled to add my review due to this fact.
My final comment is that OMATS has a fabulous location and setting, unfortunately, don't really know what has happened there in the past year but it is just not the same wonderful place it used to be.

One of the most beautiful locations on Aruba. Too bad it is badly maintained.
The food: after all you come here to eat. Wish I had gone somewhere else. Overcook dried out frozen fish, not fresh as told by the waiter. Undercooked veggies and garlic mash made of powder without the garlic. Haven't eaten it. After complaining the main was not put on the bill, but no apologies were made.
Huge disappointment.

Me and my wife went here on our honeymoon in november -09. And it was one of the best restaurant on Aruba if not the best. We had the lobster (1kg) and a steak. Great food, great atmosphere, great staff. I recommend it to everyone that visits Aruba. We were sitting 1,5meter from the water, on the dark with torches around us lightening up the beautiful surroundings.

We dined at Old Man and the Sea Thursday 3/11 for my birthday. A month before our trip to Aruba my husband made the special reservation to reserve the private hut for the additional $100 from 5-8 so we could catch the sunset. During the reservation process he gave his credit card to the woman on the phone. He later called again and changed our reservation from 2 to 4 people. Upon our arrival the restaurant was just beautiful with white sheer curtains as you enter and white linen on all the tables. I was very excited for out meal in the hut over the water. We were quickly greeted, and as we were seated they didn't bring us to the hut. My husband quickly spoke up and reminded the server he had reserved the hut, the server asked him again to repeat the name the reservation was under and said that was not the name they had for the reservation for the hut that evening. My husband and the server walked back to figure out what was going on. My father-in -law, his wife, and myself noticed the table in the hut was set for more than 4 people. About 10 mins later my husband was still waiting to speak with the manager as a large party of 8+ walked in, and within 5 mins were sat in the hut before the situation was resolved. As they were being seated we spoke up and even asked when they made their reservation and they said 2 days ago. We were all very upset as we had been looking forward to this dinner for over a month! After 55 mins of the manger disappearing for 20 mins at a time and showing no sense for sympathy, nor able to explain what had happened to our reservation, we had to ASK for some type of resolution as nothing was offered. Finally after the manager "called" the ownership they offered my meal and my husbands meal for free, or we could come back the following day and they would waive the $100 charge. This was not an option for us, as it was not my birthday the following day and we only had rented a car until the next morning and a taxi ride round trip from the Marriott where we were staying at to the restaurant would have easily been $80. We decided to stay... our waiter Rocky was very apologetic (more so than the management) offered us the pick of any table in the house and said he would take very good care of us. After a very upsetting start to the meal and more than an hour after our arrival we sat at a small table right at the oceans edge. Rocky was very attentive through out our meal. I started with the shrimp cocktail. The dipping sauce was very good, but the shrimp were a bit over cooked. For dinner I ordered the dueling lobster tails. The 2 Caribbean lobster tails were served with drawn butter over mashed potatoes and a half dozen muscles. The mashed potatoes were creamy and good. Unfortunately both the lobster and muscles were also over cooked. Once I dipped the lobster in a bit of butter it was ok to eat, but I passed on the muscles completely. My husband started with the stuffed oysters which he enjoyed. For dinner he had their Seafood Exploration, which was shrimp, lobster, and fish served over linguini in red sauce. The sauce kept his seafood a bit more most then mine and was the most enjoyed meal at our table. Both my father-in-law and his wife both ordered fish dishes and felt both their meals were also overcooked. After we finished dinner, the waiters, joined by the saxophone player (who had been playing most of the evening), walked over singing "happy birthday" with a dessert plate with a medley of 4 different desserts (cheesecake, sorbet, tiramisu, flan), with a lit birthday candle. It was a nice way to end the evening, but not dining in the hut did pretty much ruin my birthday. Over all the ambiance is just stunning unfortunately for us the management didn't handle things very well, and "lost" our reservation even after two phone calls regarding our reservation. It seemed like they cared more about pampering the party of 8 over a party of 4, nor care too much about the quality of their food. As beautiful as it is I don't think we would ever go back. We are planning to follow up with ownership and will update this review if we hear back from them.

We dined at Old Man of the Sea last week after seeing reviews on your website. We paid the extra $100 for the table in the Gazebo. They have a fantastic location, too bad they offer little else. The portions were small, overcooked and not as advertised by staff or menu. We weren't greeted at the door, and it went downhill from there. One pieceof bread, no butter. The bartender was the only redeeming quality besides the view. He was pleasant and made a good cocktail. Totally overpriced, and a waste of time and a vacation's night out. If they had a chef, a hostess, and a well groomed wait staff, they might have a chance to survive...awful. Too many other great restaurants on the island.
Chefs Table, Marandi, Flying Fishbones all are far superior.