El Borriquito — Restaurant in Berlin

Dear El Borriquito Team,

I decided to try your restaurant due to its popularity, and I’m sharing this feedback as I believe it might help improve your service quality.

To begin with, I’d like to comment on the Tapas Variadas platter. I enjoyed the potatoes, the calamari was tender, but the quality of the cured meats did not meet my expectations for Spanish standards. The potato sauce, however, was quite good.

For the main course, we ordered Tintenfisch gegrillt and Großgarnelen. Starting with the grilled calamari, unfortunately, it was burnt. I tried to scrape off the char and continue eating, but it was overcooked, making it difficult to enjoy. The potatoes were also overcooked and fell apart for the same reason. The vegetables, however, were cooked as they should be.

As for the prawns, the menu stated that they would be served with a salad, but no salad arrived. When we asked the waiter, we were told that the dish had been served correctly as is.

Despite it being a Monday, the restaurant was very crowded. Even though we had a reservation, we were seated at a combination of three tables pushed together. This created discomfort, as every time someone needed to leave the table, multiple people had to move to make space.

Overall, the atmosphere was lively, with lots of happy guests. However, despite the restaurant staying open until 3 a.m., while I was enjoying my wine outside, someone – whose role was unclear – attempted to pull my chair from underneath me and told me that I couldn’t sit outside after 10 p.m. This resulted in me having to leave earlier than planned.

Finally, I’d like to point out that cutting bread next to the cashier is not advisable due to hygiene concerns.

Thank you for everything, but after this experience, I do not...

Super rude staff. Had a reservation for 3, got a few minutes earlier than friends. Was ignored by people working there in front of the door for a few minutes until one cared to come to me. Showed my vaccine certificate and ID. Was asked to install the "Luca" app and fill the form. I requested politely to do it manually on paper (like any other few places that care about this). But the staff refused in an aggressive way. I suggested to wait for friends and find a solution with them. The guy repeated again and again install the app, install the app, and immediately asked another staff (a German speaking) to continue asking me to install the app!!!

Switching from one staff to another, a guest passes me through, sits at a table, no one asks him even for a vaccine certificate! And I am still explaining I'd like to go for any option other than installing the app on my phone (doing it on paper or by using friends' app who were about to join).

They ended up asking me to leave in a extremely rude and impolite way, before the friends arrived. And we of course didn't dine there.

Dear El Borriquito, you're the host of this place. It's your responsibility to provide "safety" to "all" your guests and make anyone who dines at your restaurant feel welcomed. Unfortunately you failed in both cases by letting some pass without even checking whether they are vaccinated or not, and by not providing options to the guests who are happy to follow the rules but look for their right to have options and preferences! Maybe it was all about the app and...

The restaurant is well place, nicely decorated and has a nice atmosphere, on arrival we were quickly seated and servered.

After a short while our drinks and some bread arrived.

3/4 of an hour later our food arrived. (The food tasted fine, but nothing special.)

1/2 an hour after we finished our food our plates were cleared.

3/4 hour passed with our waiter chatting to friends outside, avoiding serving anyone and every other waiter activly ignore the area of the resteraunt he was due to serve. We finally gave up on the prospect of desert or coffee and got up and got a waiter to get us the bill.

What should have been a good dining experience was ruined by appauling service. To top it off, it was expensive.

My advice would be to avoid the place, there are plenty of restaurants around with better food and who actually know how to serve...