L'Olivera — Restaurant in Barcelona

Like many who have commented before, the food is fantastic! I loved all the dishes we got and the House vermut was also a highlight.

However… we were a bit shocked by how a small incident was handled by our waiter/kitchen.

We were served by a young English speaking waiter who meant really well and offered us to sit more comfortably at the adjacent shop (same restaurant). Orders were taken but one dish was delivered to the people on the next table while their one was delivered to us.

Next table dug into our food straight away whereas I hesitated and asked a non-English speaking waiter to check if that was ours. (Even though I don’t know how the dish would look, I didn’t quite expect so much cheese… so alarm bells!)

After checking, the waiter took it away and it wasn’t replaced. A few minutes later, the English speaking waiter came to check how things were, and I mentioned that we are still waiting for the replacement of the mis-delivered dish, he then went to the next table, took the half eaten dish away from them, went back to the kitchen and within 1-2 min came back with what looked like the half eaten dish.

The outer rim of the plate was soiled by the sauce (in the same fashion as how it looked when taken away 1-2 min ago), so I called the waiter back and asked him bluntly “is this the plate of food that he had just taken away from the next table?” (…not assuming he would do something so unethical, but perhaps he didn’t realise the dish had actually already been eaten!) He instantly replied “No. It’s a new one.”

I took a small bite and realised that the dish was only lukewarm and with the soiled rim I was not comfortable. Next table looked at the dish suspiciously too and said the turnaround of making a “new one” is simply too quick to be true.

I called the waiter back and apologised for not believing in him but the whole thing was too suspicious… It was then he said “Ok” and took the dish away. He then came by to say “they will make you a new one” which I hope didn’t imply the previous one was the half eaten one.

I asked them to cancel it and let me settle the bill. I felt bad not coming across as not trusting that the waiter / kitchen would do the right thing, but honestly… there was a lot to doubt.

So, once again, with the dishes that were delivered correctly… really tasty and would strongly recommend, but the fact my dinner had to end this way was...

Just a one star because I can't give less. We went several times, first to eat the home made burger, till several people got food poising from it. To give them a second chance we ordered something else, milanesa de pollo. 2 out of the 7 milanesas had raw chicken! We gave the plates back, they cooked it again, gave us cold fries and veggies and expected us to pay the full amount. We pointed out the issue to them as well that we had before with the burger and the raw chicken that is not acceptable. Chef/manager comes out the kitchen to say that the other chef is new and still needs to learn how long to cook the milanesa and that she doesn't believe us about the burger and why we come back if it's not good, that we should not come back anymore. Goes back in the kitchen and comes back again to argue with us, instead of just apologizing and offering something of the house, in the end we could pay half the price and she followed us screaming outside. So rude, and now there's already minimum 10 of us never...

My parents always recommend this place to me and the family and it did not disappoint.

We ordered tapas and drinks for the 5 of us, the Potatas Bravas is the best we have ever had in Barcelona (we have been a few times) the sauces that came with them were lovely as well.

We had the Tempura Mushrooms which I haven't had before, they were really hot and really tasty!

The Spanish Omlette was hot and very tasty, we also ordered Ham Croquettes, Chicken Wings, Cod Fritter Balls, Chorizo and tomato bread. Everything was perfect!

The Sangria was gorgeous as well.

We did order Vegan Hummus Croquettes and another portion of Omlette but they didn't arrive (we weren't billed for them) so not sure what happened there but the service was really steady and we were really content with what we had.

If we didn't have plans for the rest of our time here I would go again tomorrow! I will definitely come back here again and would highly recommend if you visit Barcelona!

The toilets were also...