La Fonda — Restaurant in Barcelona

Unfortunately... Very disappointing. (02.10.21) We were really excited to share paella there. We chose to come between lunch and dinner as we knew that at that time it should be pretty quiet and our small order shouldn't be an issue for anyone. We booked a table few hours earlier and we got pretty nice table. Ordering food we could tell that the server was really disappointed that we are ordering only one double dish to share - paella. When he went to his colleagues we could tell that they were talking about us and laughing because of the small order... Our pealla came super quick! Too quick I'm afraid... We got it after maybe 5 min and it looked old and burned. Most likely reheatet... not great... Especially considering the price of the meal. What made it even worse, first spoon of the rice I took had long black hair in it... We were really upset but still didn't want to make scenes. We called the waiter and the showed the hair to him. He looked surprised and angry he suggested that it was my fiancee's hair (who has light brown hair...). However he apologized and proposed to bring us another dish. Because we were in a rush we kept and had this one. We were offered free dessert as a compensation and it was kind of the staff. I was thinking about giving it two start just because we received some sort of compensation. However... the pealla was far below standard. The whole experience was unpleasant and left us very disappointed and unhappy. We felt really unwelcome as we could tell that the staff is making fun and taking about us (in Spanish/Catalonian, as we don't speak it, however we caught some of it)... I am really sorry but it was the worst restaurant...

My wife was craving for a paella and we stumbled across LA Fonda. We ordered 2 set menus in order to be able to order the paella (min 2 pax) Here's a breakdown of our experience: We entered through the 2 doors (unsure why they need 2 doors) and were promptly seated. We had our baby with us in a stroller and a waiter quickly removed a chair to make space for it, much appreciated! With the set menu you get a choice of starter, main, dessert and drink. My wife got the cream of leek with tuna and I got the gazpacho. The cream soup was warm hearty and tasty. The gazpacho, although to my taste a little watered down, was surprisingly refreshing! Very tasty indeed. And then came the paella... I'm not sure if there's a different way of cooking a paella, but I'm relatively sure there isn't supposed to be any sauce at the bottom of the pan after you finish cooking it. From what I recall you're supposed to get a hard crust called socarrat which is the best part of the paella. Aside from all of this the paella came out to be quite bland. Unfortunately this was a huge disappointment as this was the original reason for our going out. For dessert I picked the chocolate mousse cake while my wife went with the crema catalána. Well I was hoping that the desserts would be able to salvage the meal but, regretfully, they were unable to do so. Not because they tasted bad, but because there really wasn't anything remarkable about them. TLDR : good looking place, steer away from the paella. Dont expect tears of joy while eating. But also... meh... Its edible

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We visited this restaurant on 19/04/23, and although the food was nice (and served by the chef) I can only possibly give this one star due to the horrible, unfriendly, unprofessional and rude service by the waiter from Bangladesh. He would not give us eye contact, he threw items on the table at us (including cutlery, card reader), he rolled his eyes, it was awful! At the end, my husband who is normally so quiet and reserved actually said to him "Just to give you some feedback, you were very unfriendly to us today" he threw a napkin, stormed off, and gave a thumbs up. No smile. No apology. It was the worst experience we had in Barcelona. I tried to find a manager (there were 2 when we entered) but funnily enough both had disappeared. We had the fixed price menu which was nice, the chef served the food, the barman served the drinks to the table so it wasn't like the waiter had a difficult job to do. But gosh, I would NOT recommend this restaurant at all. Find somewhere else to eat in Barcelona, the service was so shocking we were very upset. The waiter bought the bill at the end, and had already typed in the largest tip to the machine. When we asked what the 3 different totals were on the bill, he said "Taxes", when actually it was "Tips". He wanted to give himself the biggest tip. For the first time, we asked for the tip to be removed, but the cheek of already typing this into the card machine without us even seeing the bill yet says it all. The focus is on ensuring tourists spend as much money as possible, with rudeness and unprofessionalism at all...