Espana Dining & Bar — Restaurant in Hobart

No… just… no. Writing this review to avoid others making the same mistake of being lured by a deceptive, glossy website. We fell for it but should’ve looked closer to ensure we stayed away. It appears North Hobart has acquired its own tourist trap complete with false pedigree in the advertising to get the punters in. A one minute google search reveals that the chef bio’s/ web site content appear to be universally used for tourist trap restaurants around the world (Prague, Dakar, Dubai, Japan …North Hobart) and everything (other than the menu content) is complete BS. This includes the claim that they’ve been operating since 1998 as the site was operating as the Har Wee Yee Chinese restaurant for decades prior to closing in 2021 and the current restaurant still bears the décor of the previous tenants. The restaurant was completely empty when we arrived for our booking at 7pm on a Saturday night – never a good sign given the popularity of the North Hobart restaurant district. During our time there, no other dinners arrived, no-one arrived to pick up their take-aways and no Uber eats drivers collected orders. The food would have to rate as the worst Tapas we’ve ever eaten and up there with the worst food we’ve been served in any restaurant, world-wide. The saganaki cheese was thin, dry and chewy like it had been fried, left to cool and then re-heated. The re-heating would explain why the balsamic glaze had liquified over the top and I’m not sure what the sultanas were doing there. The fried chorizo and calamari had not been fried (no fry/pan marks on the chorizo) and was sitting in water like it had been microwaved from frozen. One taste was enough to decide that some of it wasn’t hot (not even warm), was inedible and possibly unhealthy so we left the rest uneaten. The crispy chicken was over cooked (bordering on burnt) and chewy, once again, like it had been cooked and re-heated/microwaved. The pumpkin salad was passable. The dressing was tasty, but the salad didn’t include the sultanas, as per the menu, the almonds were just a few whole almonds thrown in and the pumpkin didn’t look roasted as you’d expect. They didn’t have one of the two red wines on the menu and the waiter seemed unsure if they were able to make the virgin mojito they had listed so my wife opted for a low-risk fruit juice. I won’t go back again and if this review stops people falling for the false advertising and enduring the poor-quality food then it’s been worthwhile. Places like this ruin the reputation of our city/...

Be warned: its quite difficult finding actually bad food in Hobart, and this place is the absolute worst meal i have ever had in Hobart by a mile. I'm sorry to say the following, but... We stopped on a whim last night, and the fact it was completely empty should have warned us. The pictures and menu looked great but the beef croquettes were so oily you couldn't taste anything but oil, and the paella Negra was neither using black rice (that's what negra means, and for contrast we had had the real thing the night before at winterfeast) nor, bizarrely, had any flavour. It was a mush, lots of seafood but no seasoning or the flavour you get from paella. But the worst was the garlic mushrooms, which came swimming in some brown sauce in a big plate. The sauce was hideous, some bizarre bitter aftertaste. Completely inedible, we left it and they didn't even ask us why that dish was taken back basically untouched. Did i mention it took forever to bring the food out too?i do not know how this place is still open, but it really won't be for long given the quality of food everywhere else up and down that stretch of street in...

I took my wife here to try the Paella as I had heard good things.

I was not disappointed.

I have travelled around Spain, Barcelona, Pamplona, San Sebastián, Granada and Madrid to name a few.

The paella is as good as any restaurant or market paella I have sampled.

Authentic, clearly made the proper way instead of from the Risotto and biryani method some restaurants adopt to make paella quicker: definitely finished with flavours of saffron and an in house stock.

We sampled the mixed paella with a rich chorizo that was rendered into the flavour of the bomba rice, finished with juicy garlic prawns and poached chicken thigh meat. Truly delicious, and perfectly seasoned.

We also loved the coquettes and garlic prawns and were pleasantly surprised by the Spanish wine list.

The business is a new start up so I expect the venue will improve with time, and they could have been a little quicker maybe, but we were comfortable and happy drinking Riocha.

We will go ...