La Mar Salada Restaurant — Restaurant in Barcelona

Big surprise! We had one of the best paellas ever here, along with some amazing dishes on a high level. We honestly didn’t expect this. The restaurant is located on one of the most touristic strips of the city, surrounded by a lot of tourist traps, but this place is a big exception.

We started with some incredible tapas for the start. The razor clams with crispy Iberico bacon were just incredible, and the traditional Spanish potato salad "ensalada rusa" was fantastic. Pure love! The black squid croquettes and the potato "bomba" filled with octopus Bolognese were also so amazing.

And then the paella: so rich, so flavorful, not salty at all, but full of taste. Unbelievable! Will definitely come back for it!

We also had a fish dish with corvina on a high fine dining level. So many flavours and textures in the sauces and gels. Wow!

Don't forget to leave some room for desserts! They have a great pâtissier on their team, which is pretty unusual for such a restaurant. We had the espuma of crema catalana, a traditional dessert (can't remember the exact name) - something made of egg yolk and sugar, so super creamy and delicious.

Everything is on a high level. Check the photos to get an impression.

Only thing:The service is nice and friendly but could be a bit more cordial to make the experience perfect. A friendly smile for your guests would be much appreciated.

The team consists of Marc Singla, who worked at the legendary El Bulli for several years, pastry chef Albert Enrich (superstar amazing!), and his wife Marta Cid, who comes from an gastronomic family with a lot of heritage. They know what they’re doing!

Full...

calamari had a lot of flour and little meat, batter was soft and soggy. octopus croquette was mostly batter too. the WORST was the paella. there was a generous amount of squid but the prawns had very little meat and were very mushy (i could squish them out of the shell. found a rotten mussel, but by that time, we had eaten 3/4 of the paella. the mussel smelt like sweaty gym clothes that were left and forgotten in a plastic bag overnight. pointed it out to the wait staff, and they offered a free dessert as compensation. we were okay with it at first, but then decided that we’d rather have a discount than the dessert. by this time, we had finished the remaining rice (bc i don’t like wasting food, although in hindsight this wasn’t very smart), and when we asked for the discount, the staff said that it wasn’t reasonable to ask for a discount after we had finished the paella. we tried explaining to her that there was only a little bit left when we had found the rotten mussel, but she was adamant that it we shouldn’t have finished the food if we wanted a discount. in the end, we gave up on trying to reason with her bc we realized that it wasn’t worth our time and energy to speak with someone so stubborn. mind you, throughout this whole ordeal, not once did any of the wait staff or managers, who had smelt and confirmed the rottenness of the mussel themselves, even bothered to apologize. in the end, they gave us a free dessert and waived the cost of our 1 sangria, but still no apology. truly disappointed by the food, but even more so by the...

We went to this restaurant based on a recommendation by a friend, and then a second recommendation by a tour guide. Of course, after these 2 recommendations and reading all the reviews, we were expecting a lovely dinner for my husband and myself, and our 2 adult kids. I have to say, the food was completely and utterly excellent, even exceptional. Everything people said in the reviews about the paella being fabulous was absolutely true. However, the wait staff actually made the experience miserable. We had an early reservation, 8 o'clock. The restaurant was quite empty at this time, maybe 3 or 4 tables full. It was 100 degrees outside and it took 10 minutes just to get the waiter's attention to ask for some water. We were all clearly sweating and when my daughter asked for some water, the waiter actually waived his hand as if telling her to wait. From there, everything relating to the waiter was awful. We actually tried to make things go well!! We thanked him UP and DOWN, way too much, and it didn't matter; he just didn't like us. We weren't loud, we were appreciative, polite, and complimentary, and still he was dismissive. After our dinner, HE BROUGHT US THE CHECK!! He didn't ask us if we wanted coffee or dessert, he just brought us the check. We bought 2 bottles of wine plus appetizers and dinner. We were polite and did nothing wrong. Yet this waiter made our experience truly awful. We will not only NOT recommend this restaurant, we will go out of our way to tell friends to STAY AWAY. Enter at...