Carmina — Restaurant in Barcelona

I have never experienced such bad service in my life. I went with my friend and we both work in a restaurant as well so we understand that sometimes work gets busy and it might take longer. But that is not an excuse to just be plain grumpy at the table. When we sat down we had to wait quite a while. Then a man arrived and asked immediately what we wanted. I asked for a wine menu and his response was “okey but what do you want for dinner” so we ordered 2 carbonara pasta even though we had not even had the chance to look for drinks. Then a woman came to take our order, we ordered wine and she asked what we wanted to eat. Meaning our order had not been put into the system, they had forgot our pastas eventhough that was the only thing we had ordered with the guy (what was he doing at the table then??) then we ordered a bottle of wine and water, and water was forgotten (again). When we asked if we could get our water the girl basically rolled her eyes at us and said “yes after”. Because of the very hurried ordering pace, we received our wine and dinner almost simultaneously. When the bottle of wine was served, she just immediately poured our glasses, did not ask us to taste or anything. The guy who did our carbonara in the wheel was the friendliest of the entire evening. Nobody came by to ask how our food was or anything. When we were finished the plates were just taken away without asking anything. They asked if we wanted dessert and we said we wanted to wait a while. After 10 minutes the menus were laid on the table which made us feel a bit like “please just go away asap”. I felt like skipping dessert here bc i didn’t want to spent anymore money in this place but my friend didn’t have the energy to go somewhere else. So we got dessert and we tried to make some jokes/conversation with the waiter (bc we ordered the tiramisu and it is made at the table) but he just kind of ignored us, it was very awkward. We just decided to finish our wines and go bc it was just not an welcoming atmosphere. Then the bill was placed on the table (without us asking) and it was time to go. Nobody asked how our evening was or anything. I have never experienced such disinterest in a restaurant which is relatively...

WE HAD OUR PHONE STOLEN FROM INSIDE THE RESTAURANT! Me and my friends came at 21:45 yesterday and we sit at the bar. After we ordered we realized that my friend’s phone was gone. We went to the front to talk to the manager and they said that actually they saw someone ‘weird’ walking in but they didn’t do anything. I asked how that was possible because there is a queue and you have to wait to be seated. They said that there is a lot of people and they have NO CONTROL. One of the staff said that the same thing has happened on the day before and that made me really angry because how can you say that this is something that is happening on your restaurant and you don’t do anything? Their answer was like ‘ah this is Barcelona, these things happen here all the time there is nothing we can do’. We were not outside, it was not a pickpocket on the metro, it happened INSIDE YOUR RESTAURANT and you don’t want to take any responsibility. The manager only came to show us the camera a long after we were there at the door waiting to have anyone to help us. And to be completely honest, she just agreed to show us the camera after I started to tell people that were coming in that we had our phone stolen from the table. They came to show us but the recording was not there yet and by the end of the night the manager didn’t want to deal with us anymore and she didn’t come to talk to us again or to show us the footage that really mattered. I just think this is unacceptable. This attitude of ‘this is Barcelona you should know better’ it’s unacceptable. It was from inside the restaurant and if this is happening the least you can do is warn your clients like I had in past on another restaurant in the touristic area. But they don’t want to warn you because this will make them look bad, it will make them look like their restaurant not safe and it’s just bad publicity. They rather have your phone stolen than actually try to avoid/help/do anything about it so I’m here to warn that this is happening. Ah, mind you that the manager lied saying that this never occurred before while the other employee had just told me ‘we had the exact same thing happening yesterday’. So my advice is STAY AWAY...

In El Born, Barcelona, used to be a restaurant, called Senyor Parellada, that was one of my favorite restaurants. It was a typical Catalan restaurant. The food wasn't amazing but it still was very good and, most of all.... I don't know how to say that... it made you feel that what you were eating was what you were supposed to eat. You feel me? Unfortunately, the pandemic forced the owners to close the restaurant, which then re-opened and is now called Carmina. It's an Italian restaurant that respects the spirit of Senyor Parellada. I always wondered how an Italian restaurant could respect the spirit of a Catalan restaurant… A few weeks ago, I had the opportunity to finally try out that new restaurant. I must say I was shocked to see how they transformed the venue. It's beautiful now... but they still completely lost the charm of the old restaurant. In other words, I would have loved it if I hadn't known the place before... but I don’t. As we were waiting for the rest of the party to arrive, we were checking the venue and a waiter jumped in front of us asking "What do you want?!"... a nice way to start the evening, right? The rest of the service was alike: during the whole evening we felt like we were bothering them. Sometimes, the waitress tried to be nice suggesting things but somehow, she managed to sound aggressive even when she was trying to help. And at some point, they simply abandoned us: we arrived around 8 pm and left around 12... But the worst part was the food: absolutely nothing was good. Sorry, the bread (for which they charged €2 per person) was very good. The rest was... bad. I ordered a roll made of avocado that was beautiful but tasteless. And I ordered a paella (cause, you know, the spirit thing) and it was overcooked and simply bad, one of the worst paellas I've had. All this for €50 per person, no dessert... Basically, one of the worst food-related experiences in my life. They shouldn't dare to refer to Senyor Parellada.

Quality & taste: 1/10 Quantities: 7/10 Atmosphere: 8/10 Originality: 6/10 Ratio price / quality: 1/10 Service: 1/10 How I felt afterwards: 1/10

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