Zenith — Restaurant in Barcelona

Check out Top Tip, Paragraph 2 …! So, for reasons undisclosed, I’d screwed up my anniversary with my partner and needed to make amends… We’re both keen travelers and foodies, and finding ourselves in Barcelona, rather than a fancy dinner restaurant I decided to search for the No.1 brunch bar - hello Zenith!

Top Tip: On arrival, you wait in reception by the bar, to be seated. Zenith doesn’t take reservations, and reception looked pretty busy - four couples ahead of us… If we’d not walked so far, chances are we would have strolled off somewhere else. Thank goodness we didn’t because in less than 5-minutes we were seated. Indeed at the time we arrived the restaurant was largely empty. I mention this because as we were stood in reception, folks were arriving, seeing us waiting and walking away… oops.

Full credit to the staff throughout our experience. They were faultlessly helpful and friendly.

We had (am I going to admit this publicly…) two breakfasts each!

My partner started with a Jack Fruit Taco - and received Nacho’s. It was simply a case of her accent not being understood and as soon as we pointed this small confusion out, the staff whisked away the nachos and a Taco was promptly delivered.

I started with Eggs Benedict - the eggs were cold, and overly tainted with vinegar, but edible - but, fair play, the eggs cooked to my exact specification.

Accompanying this, my partner had a Bloody Mary (too sweet - we wondered if it had been made with orange juice rather than lemon juice but she asked for extra spice to correct it and this was received promptly.)

I had the faultless Baileys Espresso Martini - loved it.

Second course was a standard fry-up for my partner - eggs, bacon, mushrooms etc - which she enjoyed so much she asked for the leftovers to be boxed for take-away - and this was done immediately.

I had the Mixed Berry Pancakes - again, faultless.

The venue is spacious, clean, and with some nifty little alcoves designed for Instagram moments.

The menu is breathtakingly broad, and dietary & allergy requirements accommodated where possible.

Whilst there were a few glitches - and taste is so subjective, correct temperature of food not so much so - between venue design, staff professionalism, breadth of menu, and pricing, I’d definitely revisit them - and when I’m next in Madrid, Lisbon or Porto, will indubitably visit for my pancake...

We went here to celebrate my birthday, after we ordered, the food came out in 15 minutes but the drinks took over half an hour! I asked about them and they said they are coming, that the kiwi juice takes time to extract lol, and 10 min later i walk in to cancel them and i see the drinks sitting at bar while the waitress is having a conversation with the barista!! i ask if these are these ours, because i wanted to cancel them at this point. she says yes they are but i can cancel them if i want, i said if they’re done then it’s fine we just take them. it took a few more min to arrive to the table!!! one of the waitresses came back to apologize which is nice, i work hospitality so i understand these things happen, but to not say anything the whole 35 min was a bit ridiculous. also there was an eyelash in my friends drink lol. when we ordered our food they asked me if i want honey on my greek yogurt and i said yes and they tried to charge me for it?? offering without telling me its extra is bad business, the waitress tried to do this with the starters as well, asking us if we want to order more food when we clearly did not. won’t be coming back, the food wasn’t good enough to justify the poor service. in the end they comped our food which was nice but also the bare minimum, and i essentially had to complain multiple times to them about how everything went to even get the offer of being comped. where i work, i would’ve apologized and invited them the drinks or food...

DONT GO IF YOU ARE TOURISTS

Ok food but SCAMMY sales methods. TIMOTEO was the name of our waiter, who tried to oversell every single thing on the menu and also scam us in the process. Example: We ordered a jug of sangria, and some water.. He proceeds to tell us that they don’t have any “big waters, only small ones” - implying there is no juggs for waters only bottles. He brings us the bottles, and then two minutes later brings us our sangria, along with another jug of sangria (they obviously had more juggs, he just tried to up-sell the water) that he “ordered by accident”, and then kept asking, “are you sure you guys don’t want it?” to which we clearly said NO. SURE ENOUGH, it WAS on the bill later on.

You pay on the way out, and during the process they rushed us to pay “because there’s people waiting”, WITHOUT showing us the bill, so that we wouldn’t see what they put on there.

We asked for just a simple fruit bowl, Timoteo said “sure” and charged us one of the breakfast items - yoghurt and fruit bowl - 6.50€ for 3 slices of banana, and a couple of mixed berries.

Other things to mention as well but my fingers are tired. Long story short, go to any other...