Gastrobar Pipa — Restaurant in Barcelona

Unless I've had a notably bad experience and feel the need to warn people I only write about restaurants I like, and what a joy it was to dine at Gastrobar Pipa in the @22 area of Poblenou for the first time. This is the place to go for filling plates perfectly presented at reasonable prices with both indoor and outdoor service. We dined al fresco (inside the restaurant is tasteful and intimate), deciding to forgo starters and focus on meatier dishes and desert. My wife had the beef milanese napolitan-style, with iberian ham and melted Burrata cheese over a crisp and juicy breaded beef base. It was an entire plate of exquisitely layered tastes, especially the Iberian ham. For my main course I had the Wagyu burger with caramelised onion, bacon, cheddar cheese, and potatoes. The burger was delicious, and along with the potatoes just enough to leave room for our desert, the blueberry cheesecake. As former Brooklynites, notions of cheesecake as a sliver of cake are sacrosanct. Here, they essentially crumble the cheesecake so that it's big chunks of cake mixed with blueberries and crumbled cookies. Es un plato muy rico. We love this restaurant and will return again to sample...

How you can ruin your guests' experience by bad service....

The four of us had dinner here and the food was really good and the interior was nice.

It was a really sad that the staff was singlehandedly able to put this all to shame...

We ordered tapas for starters and the waiter already started cleaning out the dishes before everyone had eaten their share. When told that we wanted to finish our starters first, they responded by bringing the main courses, so we ended up having a mix of unfinished tapas and main courses at the same time...

When we complained the waiter told us it was the chef's fault, which of course is utter nonsense, as the serving staff is responsible for the pace of the servings because they communicate with the customers, not the chef.

Not only left this behavior a bad aftertaste, but is also commercially unwise, to put it politely... We had intended to order a second bottle of wine, but we didn't get the chance to do so. We also decided to forego desserts and coffees as we didn't feel welcome. A real shame, as the restaurant was only half full when we left, so there was nothing to justify this...

I’m quite torn in writing this review. There were many positives about this restaurant. The setting and decor is great, the staff, friendly, welcoming, attentive. The menu varied but sufficiently streamlined to still be good.

The croquettes were great, the pulpo great (other than the over seasoned mash to accompany), the wine, good quality at a great cost. I have to also point out the waiter highlighting we were ordering too much, which he didn’t have to do.

The large negative which I have to bring attention to is that the paella is actually charged at double the rate stipulated on the menu. I appreciate that most places will charge per person, but this was not highlighted on the menu, as is normally the case. Additionally, fresh fish wasn’t used for this.

It’s such a shame as the rest of the experience was great but this really let it down. Would I go back? Possibly. Without the paella experience, definitely. It would’ve been great value and...