El Glop Plaça Catalunya — Restaurant in Barcelona

We visited El Glop on our first day of the trip, October 25th, and were amazed by the warm welcome. The waiter was very friendly, warm, talkative, and spoke excellent English (we now think it was the owner himself?). He recommended dishes, wouldn’t let us leave without dessert, and at the last moment said to my husband: “I have something very special for you,” then brought us some Grappa. The bill ended up being quite large, but the evening was lovely and the food was delicious. We decided we would come back again on our last day.

That went very badly. The waiter this time didn’t speak any English at all. He pointed to a table for us to sit at, gave one menu and ran off. We tried to ask what he would recommend for two people, but he pointed at the four-meat platter and ran away again. Since that looked like a portion for one person, we decided to order separately. The half chicken was tasty, but the meat platter was rather dry. We thought about ordering dessert, but nobody paid any attention to us anymore.

We eventually called one of the waiters and asked for the bill. He nodded and disappeared. We never saw him or the bill again. Then we called over the “boss,” who brought us a huge bill. Foolishly, we paid before checking it and only afterwards realized something was wrong. By then, all the staff had vanished. When we finally got our waiter’s attention and asked if it was really our bill, he glanced at it, nodded briefly, and walked off.

We called the man in the blue shirt (the boss) again and told him we’d been given the wrong bill. He took it and went to sort it out with our waiter. After quite some time, the waiter returned with the correct bill and a card terminal. We told him we had already paid. He disappeared again for a long while, and finally brought us the cash refund.

We are grateful that it was resolved, but we did not expect such unpleasant, cold, and indifferent service. It was the complete opposite of our first visit. Thank you for the wonderful first experience — but we will not...

The paella was amazing I can’t lie, the taste was incredible. However, we had a frustrating experience with the service. Our server didn’t speak English, and when we tried to ask whether the €19.50 price was per person or for the whole dish, he tried to explain it using hand gestures, which left us very confused. At other restaurants we’ve been to, it’s clearly stated on the menu if the price is per person but unfortunately, that wasn’t the case here.

The menu listed the paella as €19.50, but it wasn’t made clear that this was the price per person. So when two people order it, the total ends up being nearly €40 quite a surprise, especially considering how affordable the rest of the menu is. It honestly felt like we were being forced to pay more through misleading information, and that left a us feeling like we’ve been scammed.

Given the pricing of the other dishes, we didn’t expect the paella to be so expensive (for Barcelona standards), and the unclear communication made things worse. I could’ve accepted it as just a translation issue and moved on but around 10 minutes later, a different waiter who spoke fluent English appeared and stayed for the rest of the evening. We never saw the original server again.

I’m not saying everyone must speak English of course, we’re in a non-English-speaking country. But the way this was organized just didn’t feel right. Why let someone who can’t communicate in English take orders from tourists, only for another English-speaking server to step in later?

Overall, the whole situation felt like a setup aimed at taking advantage of tourists. To be honest, it left a pretty sketchy impression. Even the tables around us looked surprised when they received their bills, so I’m sure we weren’t the only ones...

Seafood Paella was nice but awful service. 😭😭

I arrived this restaurant at 6:20pm, there were only three tables occupied including me. I waited for 28 minutes for them to bring me the menu. And i ordered one bottle of sparkling water and seafood paella. They brought me the water 2 minutes after. But it took exactly 46 minutes to get my food. It’s okay that it will take time to cook the food, but the thing that i don’t understand is other customers who came later than me and ordered exactly same menu as mine got their food 20 minutes before me. So i tell them “sir, i was waiting for my food for 1000 hours. Can i get mine as well?” I was very polite when i was asking. BUT… the staff saying that “No, impossible, you were here for only a few times.” I didn’t mean that i was actually waiting for 1,000 hrs. So i told them i was waiting almost an hour. They didn’t even say sorry but just saying “one minute” with angry facial expression. Which made me so sad and depressed.

The food finally came to me after this. The paella itself is very nice and i was satisfied.

After i finished, i went to the counter to pay. Since nobody apologized me, i talked about this to staffs at the counter, BUT they were making FUN OF ME 🥵😡 I don’t understand the language, and three staffs were talking in Spanish and started to laughing and completely ignored me. So i just left the restaurant. I was alone and since they were making fun of me, i was scared. What i needed was just...