Añada Bar & Restaurant — Restaurant in Melbourne

What a poor experience!! Do not eat here. The food is average at best, and the service is disgraceful!!

My wife and I arrived early for a 2 hour dinner seating. We ordered the chefs selection and opted for the paella as an additional $10 per person add on. We were okay with this as the waiter really talked up the paella.

The food was hit and miss, with only a few dishes being average at best. The others were quite ordinary.

We got the impression early that the waiter (Freddy) was not really interested in our experience. After we finished our tapas, Freddy asked how everything was. We were honest and said that we didn't care for the mushroom dish. His response was "right", and then he walked off.

Our paella arrived after half an hour of waiting. The paella was burnt and a third of the rice was uncooked and inedible due to lack of liquid added whilst cooking. The waiter had pumped up the so called popular "crispness" of this dish, but we found that they had skimped on the liquid causing some of the rice to not even cook, and in turn, burn and stick to the pan. The seafood was okay, but overall this was an average dish.

When we ordered the chefs selection, the waiter asked if we had any dietary requirements. I advised that I had an intolerance to capsicum and asked if any dish contained this. He advised that nothing did. A roast potato dish accompanied the paella which was covered in pureed capsicum. We could not eat this dish. To his credit, Freddy took a glass of wine off the bill.

The kicker was when the waiter came over and asked my wife (while I was in the bathroom) if we wanted dessert, but advised her that we only had 15 minutes to eat it as they needed the table back. When I arrived back to our table, and after my wife updated me, Freddy came back and told me again that we could have dessert but only had 15mins.

We ordered dessert and Freddy then snatched the menu from my hand. Another waitress came over and delivered our dessert along with the bill and said they needed the table back in a rude tone. Had there not have been such a long wait for our mains, then we would have had enough time to enjoy our meal without being pushed out of the door.

Furthermore, when I booked online, I selected that we were celebrating a special occasion. At no point did anyone at the restaurant acknowledge that we were celebrating an occasion.

This restaurant has a real opportunity to improve the dining experience of its guests. This could easily overshadow the quality of the menu. I have read some of these reviews and there is quite a bit of mention of the poor quality of the paella. The restaurant is clearly not observing these reviews as they have commented on one stating that they have "never received negative feedback on this dish".

Spend your hard earned...

An unfortunate ending to an otherwise good experience.

We went to Anada Bar tonight for my wife's birthday. The food was great and beverage menu impressive.

We had ordered a variety of tapas as well as a paella to share. The restaurant was quite full and it seemed the wait staff may have been a little overstretched. The waitress did not want to run through the order again before leaving our table despite my wife’s suggestion.

We confirmed with the waitress that there was still the paella to come and it seemed that she had forgotten it. She confirmed with us “it was the chorizo one right?”. We waited another 25 minutes and decided that we had to go to get our little one to bed. Then we were informed that it was just a couple of minutes away but we had decided to go.

The chef was clearly shitty and said we had to pay for it and that’s fine as we took it with us. But that’s not the issue.

The waitress said in front of us that we didn’t order the paella when we made our initial order and that we just ordered it when we were chasing it later. So, blatantly lied to her manager in front of us. I heard my wife order it the first time. How did the waitress know it was the chorizo one when we enquired later.

Anyway the manager was nice and gave us a voucher for $20 that we won’t use because that’s how a free market works… You don’t like it then you don’t go back and tell everyone about it. In Melbourne, there are too many options.

My wife and I do mystery shopping at hotels and restaurants but in general we are quite forgiving with this type of thing and in principle don’t really believe the mantra that the customer is always right… Unless we...

I remembered Añada fondly from years back, so decided to return with a friend from out of town who was visiting. Food was good but the staff were obviously overstretched and harried, which is something that happens reasonably regularly judging from reviews even pre-Covid. Our waiter was irritable, officious and dismissive - he didn't confirm our order as we'd requested variations of the chef's menu - which was something he was clearly annoyed about. For the final main we received 2 serves of fish for all 3 of us, but this is after receiving 3 serves of other things. So I waited for my main. When I questioned him about this he explained, visibly irritated I was making him have to stop and respond after mumbling about each dish after dropping them off, that the 2 serves of fish were for the 3 of us and that they "serve by weight" - as if that was something bleedingly obvious! I understand the principle of fine dining where staff must swoop in and out relatively undetected, however in fine dining settings they always take the time to clearly communicate dishes and manage expectations - this was definitely not that. As dining is judged on the complete experience - not just the food - the service made the entire experience unpleasant and overshadowed any positives about the food. Will not be returning and will be advising others not to...