Tapisco — Restaurant in The Hague

Yet another head-scratcher from the Michelin Guide in The Hague. How this place snagged a Bib Gourmand is beyond me. 🤔

The location itself is nice — right in front of the Kneuterdijk tram stop, across from the VOCO IHG hotel, and just a short stroll from our Hotel des Indes. So far, so good. My husband made a reservation for lunch, which turned out to be completely unnecessary — there were plenty of open tables.

We sat down and ordered their “bread service,” which turned out to be… grocery store bread with a side of EVOO from Greece. Now, this is supposed to be a Spanish restaurant, so I’m not sure why we’re doing Greek olive oil here. Nothing against Greek oil (love it, actually), but it just didn’t make sense. The bread itself? Meh. And yes, you pay for it — which I know is pretty standard in the Netherlands, but still.

For our meal, we just ordered a few appetizers since we weren’t that hungry and had another reservation later. We got the sardinas anchoadas — just three little slivers for 10 euros; shrimp croquetas that barely tasted like shrimp and were overcooked by about 30 seconds (the color gives it away and you bite into a over crispy bite that skins your whole roof of the mouth; and sobrasada, which was chorizo on brioche. Except the “brioche” was not fresh at all — it was basically sliced white bread cut into a circle and toasted. Come on, guys.

We also ordered a board of jamón ibérico, which should’ve been glistening with that beautiful marbled fat, but it looked dry and lifeless. None of these dishes were standouts, and honestly, not one of them was worth writing home about.

We had three glasses of wine with our food, followed by coffee, verbena tea, and crema catalana for dessert. Again — nothing bad, just nothing special. Everything felt… average. And for the prices they charge, that’s a no from me. The bill came to...

I took my wife here for her birthday dinner following a recommendation by a friend.

The positives:

-The restaurant is spacious and beautifully furnished with high quality materials. The design and layout beautifully blend aspects of a traditional taperia (open kitchen with seating at counter) with modern, New York style gastro-bar.

-Our waiter was friendly, genuine and attentive making sure our wine glasses were never empty.

-our 3 course menu (gazpacho with octopus to start, cod with grilled red pepper and purée, cheese selection) Was tasty and well presented.

Negatives:

-I wasn’t a fan of their take of a Pisco sour (with rose water), which didn’t work. The bar tender must have noticed as he offered me another cocktail, which was a big improvement!

-The portions are annoyingly small and nit great value. The three course dinner will definitely leave you hungry, which we found disappointing. In the end we ordered some extra papas bravas and tostadas (both small and pricey), which just about did the trick

-i wasn’t totally convinced about the guidance we got in our wine selection. We asked for a light red in the sub-€50 category but were strongly recommended a €70 white (Verdejo), which was ok but didn’t blow us away. Giving us a broader comparison of different alternatives and their tastes would have helped.

Conclusion:

Over all we had a lovely evening in a beautiful restaurant with good food and attentive service. Would recommend Tapisco for a special occasion (or a swanky spur of the moment bite!) but make sure you...

The best part of this experience was the atmosphere. It is a pretty space. Our dinner was with 14 people and we called ahead to ensure that they’d be able to accommodate us. However they could not. I and two other friends ordered the chef‘s tasting menu which we assumed would come out more quickly. The appetizer came out an hour after we arrived and then the main course came out over two hours after we arrived. People were eating their desserts while we waited for our main courses. The appetizer of fish tartare was not good and it was slimy. And the main course of cod was woefully under cooked. The middle was cold and rubbery. I told the waiter about this he took it back to the chef and the chef told him that it was “cooked in butter” and that it was not undercooked. the waiter brought it back to me and told me that if I wanted something different then I could. If I were the chef I would’ve just taken it back and cooked it a little longer! We were told that our dessert would be chocolate mousse. However we got cream brûlée that was just put on the table without explanation. And finally there were three red wine choices on the menu. Several of us had various red wines. However when we got the wine the waiters simply said “who had the red wine?” Instead of saying who had a specific named red wine. not sure how this restaurant got a Michelin star. I lived in DC and I’ve been to many restaurants that have obtained this prize and this restaurant certainly...