Encasa Restaurant — Restaurant in Sydney

Sometimes we stumble across a place that we come to love, on other occasions we visit a place someone else adores and on other occasions our appetite to seek out something a little different occupies our thoughts. The latter was the case with Encasa located in Lane Cove.

Last night was a lovely summmer’s evening and I arrived around 6 ish and was shown to my table close to the bar where after making my selection I sipped on a Campari, ice and lemon whilst waiting for my food to arrive.

The first dish I sampled was an Ensalade Mixta topped with thinly sliced octopus which was an addition to the salad as referenced, a slight saltiness of freshly mixed leaves, olive oil combined with the ocean fresh octopus was simply sublime and set the scene for the evening.

The second dish I sampled was the chorizo fresco con Judias with white beans cooked in cider and accompanied with a small Pandesal, with no potatoes. Whilst the beans are smaller in size to those I’ve sampled in Spain, this simple dish and subtle introduction of cider brought a surprising element to the white beans and chorizo. The pandesal is freshly baked and was welcomed to soak up those wonderful flavours of meat, beans and cider.

These two dishes were simple, well balanced and flavoursome, yet, behind the scenes the chefs work tirelessly to bring the special flavours and authentic cuisine from Spain to the many tables with resounding success.

Encassa is a most popular restaurant a place I will return to next year to sample more of the culinary...

The food was good, a little pricey. The biggest disappointment was the service. While we were waiting to be seated, we were ignored by several wait staff. I understood it was a busy night but they didn't even have the courtesy to say they will be with us in a moment.

We then ordered a dish with sourdough and the bread came out entirely burnt. When we told the waitress about this, and requested it be sent back, she seemed to not understand that we were sending it back and said to worry, she will get us more bread. The second lot of bread also came out with some burnt pieces. Since we were hungry, we just ate it. After our meal, to our surprise we were charged for the additional bread, at which point we were too tired to argue with them.

There were several points I'm the evening when we simply could not get the attention of the wait staff and we had to wait for about 15 minutes for the dessert menu and then another 15-20 minutes for them to bring us the bill after we said we wouldn't be having dessert

I would have scored the food on it's own four stars, minus the burnt bread, but the service two...

I came here with my family as we haven't been to a Spanish place in years, and it hasn't disappointed me. It is primarily a bar but it does good as a restaurant. The food is quite good and filling as well. It is certainly high quality for how much we paid. There is a very large variety of food items in the menu and a very large number of drinks, mostly alcoholic in nature but there are non alcoholic drinks, all soft drinks, no Coke though but Pepsi is ok. The service is very nice. The staff are polite but also quick to come and go, so they aren't staring at you eating but not lingering after you order. The atmosphere around the restaurant is good, the ground floor is a bit crowded and tight, it is pretty crowded at around 18:30 and 19:00, there is a basement but I haven't seen it before. It is a bit loud to the point where you do have to raise your voice to hear what the people on your table are talking about. 7/10 Great food Good service Good atmosphere Might come again if I have the chance or...