Restaurante Meson La Cuesta — Restaurant in Cádiz

Not only did we have a lovely meal here, we had a really surprising experience. With a small amount of Spanish we managed to not only order a very good meal but the lady serving in the restaurant introduced us to her Dad who is also the Chef. He sat with us and told us he had been a Chef during the 70's in Claridge's Hotel in London and had been working in the kitchen while the Queen was dining there! So he actually cooked for the Queen!! He loved his time in London. The article from the newspaper about his time in Claridge's is framed and hanging on the wall. You can see it in one of my photos. It was a just a lovely evening being with this now elderly man, who after cooking all day and into the evening, came to sit with us at closing time to share his story and we thoroughly enjoyed his fascinating company. This is so much more than a restaurant. This is a family restaurant who want to include you in their story. We left feeling like we had been...

Not sure if it was because we went at 7-8pm, but the only tasty thing we got was the garlic shrimp. The fried fish is the same half fried and overly salted stuff you can get everywhere. The garlic chicken tasted like defrosted chicken filets rubbed with garlic (there was 'chicken juice' all around it) and when someone asked patatas bravas (not on the menu), they came back with salted patatas and said they didn't have Brava sauce. They could have just said no when they asked... Then in turn they were asked for at least some aioli, but it took forever and eventually the waiter returned with a little container of mayonesa hastily mixed...

It’s strange that I was kind of “welcomed” to the place. It’s almost impossible to communicate in English and I didn’t even know what I ordered after I was seated( or say they actually ordered for me) The food. Well I stressed that I can’t eat too oily one and it turned out that the tuna was almost swimming in the oil. Also impossible to taste the freshness claimed by the owner because the tuna was burnt. So if you don’t know Spanish at all or if you want real tapas instead of a set meal this is not the place to go. Interesting to see they charged me 2euro for bread for only one person.(nobody told me the...