Before you go, be aware that this is not one single restaurant. It’s basically several different outlets under one restaurant and these outlets are not consistent in their food and service. There are two key positives going for this place: First, it’s open till 1 am… After waiting at bar caneat for 2 hrs, we were told there’s no more place and at 10:30pm on a Friday night, most restaurants appeared either closing or serving the last of the remaining zombied looking clientele. We decided to walk to El Nationale, the last beacon of hope to find life and food. As we arrived at 10:45, most of the restaurants were full and bustling with life. Let me now move to the second positive element of El Nationale. Variety! The whole place can be divided roughly into three areas : tapas, seafood and steak/meat. For the next few days, we ate at all 3. Be careful here: the service and the food levels in each are very different.

The Tapas: contrary to the other reviews, I was not impressed with this place. Predictable and boring. The head waiter Imran is a nice enough guy but his recommendations are all semi deep fried food. It was fresh seafood on the menu. The gambas was the item that was edible.

The seafood: this was our favourite, which we visited the following night. The seafood on ice is fresh, the seating, a lot more elegant and comfortable, and even the wine list, a lot more superior. Be careful when ordering anything that’s displayed on the ice: I ordered 4 beautiful grilled Carabineros & found out later they were Eur 78!! The waiters also tried their best to oversell once they smell a bit of money. So tip: ask the prices for everything.

The steak/meat restaurant: for our final night, we decided to have meat. My wife ordered a lovely veal tenderloin and I ordered the lamb chops. We also semi splurged on a nice Ribera wine: Pago de carraovejas at Eur 78 which I would have to say it was well worth it after 20 minutes of decanting. The veal was great and the lamb wasn’t bad if you don’t mind a bit of gaminess. I was not impressed with the service . There was a lot of waiters floating around & I had to stand up and wave to get service a few times. Even more annoying was the fact that random waiters would come up and top up my wine even if my glass was half full. Final verdict: It’s a fun place, if you haven’t planned anything and just looking for a bit of life and predictable decent food. Nothing spectacular, except for the seafood restaurant. Just be careful of the prices. Music gets turned up around 11:30 pm and a younger crowd appears out of nowhere….