El Cangrejo Loco | Eixample — Restaurant in Barcelona

The worst dining experience in Spain - Please avoid this tourist trap at all costs !!

We made a dinner reservation for a business occasion due to its decent view and reputation for one of the best paella in town. Unfortunately, it was one of the biggest mistake I’ve made.

Food and beverages (1/10) - unfresh tomato and vegetable salad without dressing (olive oil and vinegar not provided despite asking few times), dried iberico ham (so dry you can tell it’s been prepared in advanced for way too long), bland but over seasoned seafood paella.

Sangria (I gave them 2 chances by ordering a liter each of both red and cava) , the drink was mixed poorly and had funny taste, also had half an inch of sugar laying at the bottom. Very surprised they managed to mess it up, first time ever in Spain.

More surprises comes with the service (1/10) - Service staff never offered menu or drinks unless we requested for it from the minute we sat down. Dessert was served while all of us were still having main course, despite we mentioned we were not done yet !! Throwing cutleries instead of placing them on the table !! It was so embarrassing even our clients were asking what’s going on.. Simply unbelievable !!

Ambience (8/10) - Sunset and sea view was decent if you are seated on the outdoor area on upper floor. However, there are plenty of better alternatives if romantic view is essential.

Wanted to have a good time with clients but at the end spent hundreds of Euros for such unpleasant experience. True disappointment !!

This is my first ever review and I sincerely hope it would help other visitors to avoid this...

Monkfish was very good. Croquetas were good. Veal entrecôte was average. Service was average. Attitude by management was poor.

Hotel concierge reserved us an upstairs outdoor terrace seat. We arrived, only to be told that we had been given an outdoor “basement” seat without much of a view of anything. We weren’t rude, but we asked why we couldn’t sit in the much more beautiful upstairs area. The host then asked us, “Are you Germans?” Shame, because the food was quite good. Attitude needs a lot more polish. As is customary in Spain, even in nicer restaurants, outdoor tables are filled with miserable smokers (their lung cancer rates must be sky high, sadly). This can really make your €50 meal taste like cancer-spewing tobacco and cause you to need to bag up your clothes in an isolated garbage bag when you get back to your hotel. But we didn’t want to sit inside because so few are vaccinated in Spain at the moment.

Food: 4 stars Service: 3 stars Management...

As we are seafood lovers, we choose El Cangrejo Loco to explore a bit of the best Barcelona has to offer. We look at a couple of places, but from all the great reviews on Google, plus the time we had left in the city, we picked El Cangrejo Loco and it was a great choice!

The service was great. Very nice, friendly, and helpful, suggesting a couple of option we should try, making us feel wonderful.

We had a very nice lunch, choosing a platter of seafood assortment and my husband wished to try out oysters from the Spanish coast. And of course we had a side dish of their lovely pa amb tomàquet. We washed it down with an amazing Spanish Cava, that was to die for.

It was a great way to end our stay in Barcelona!

The price was a bit higher, as we did pick from the à la carte menu, but it's also not every day you get to enjoy fresh seafood in beautiful Barcelona. I am not even mad!

We are definitely coming...