Restaurante Grimaldi — Restaurant in Cádiz

Our lunch here today was a perfect example of making sure your children aren't ratty and hungry when you arrive in a city with an amazing reputation for food. We drove 90 mins to Cadiz from near Estepona. We love great food and great drink (I sell wine for a living). I was sooooooo looking forward to an amazing lunch. But we needed to feed the little darlings ASAP and we made the schoolboy error of not doing a little research beforehand. We headed to the food market area, thinking this must surely be somewhere you could only find decent grub. A charming lady beckoned us over, as one of the children started eating one of the others, and we let ourselves be talked into sitting down. Oh, how we regretted it... The warning signs should have sounded when we asked for a fino or amontillado and the charming lady said "No, we have dry white wine or semi-sweet". We're just down the road from Jerez and Sanlucar, for Pete's sake - how could you NOT have a bit of dry sherry? But anyway. We ordered food and the first plate to arrive was a mixed salad. I thought iceberg lettuce went out with the ark, but here it was, along with some revolting rubbery cheese, strips of asparagus 'fresh' from a tin and a couple of bits of tomato. And orange. The tomato was OK. Next up, some seafood-stuffed peppers. They were OK, too. Then it was time for 4x chicken nuggets and fries for the kids. The fries were actually alright, but the nuggets would have made Mcdonalds cringe with shame. They went mostly uneaten. The paella-esque dish then arrived and it was indeed soupy and watery, as other reviewers have commented. My friend likened it to prison food. My grilled swordfish was next. Fishy-smelling cardboard would have been a more accurate description. I left most of it. The ratatouille-like accompaniment was just a bunch of vegetables, sadly grouped together in a red sauce. My wife's deep-fried calamari were average at best. For all of this desperate mediocrity (and that's being nice), we paid 140€. How can these people go home at night and think they've done a good job? They were friendly and welcoming - and, as a fellow small business owner, I don't wish them ill. But I am struggling to think of a more desperately disappointing meal that I have hardly eaten in the last twenty years. It was lamentable. So, going back to the beginning, don't ever arrive in somewhere amazing like Cadiz with uber-hungry children and without a plan of exactly where you are taking them. Or you might end up in somewhere as similarly...

The restaurant owner looks decent. He always helps in the restaurant, and serves every customer with much patience. He is so kind. Food is fresh and very “spanish”. “el Mercado Central” is just right in front of the restaurant. So I guess they can get their daily seafood supply directly from the sea which is just few minutes walk away. They sell a wide variety of nice wines too, Chandon, wisky, etc… So after a nice meal at the restaurant, it is a good idea to go for a little walk along the beach. The interior design of the restaurant is also very unique and rustic. According to the owner, he inherited the restaurant from his father, “Grimaldi” is his family name. And the history of the restaurant can be traced back to...

ATTENTION: This Restaurant tries to cheat you. They offer so called fresh food, but it's far from that. Paella like a soup, Steak without taste. Hairs in the meal. The main guy (maybe the boss) tries to convince you to take his offers. Don't agree, just leave this place!!! We asked for a fresh salad, in fluent Spanish. He gave us a hot vegetables mix, non salted with a taste of old sweat. Just disgusting. I'm sorry for the money we spend. This Restaurant shouldn't get any support from anyone. There are much better places...