Restaurant Les Barques - Cuina marinera tradicional — Restaurant in Cambrils

Avoid at all costs. Whilst on holiday last week I stopped in here for dinner with my son and mother after cycling down to Cambrills from Salou. I'd eaten in the gallera next door last year with my son and girlfriend and we loved it so assumed this might offer a similar experience.

After getting a table in the back corner looking out at the boats and placing our order (which I was later shown was 8:22pm), the drinks arrived within a minute (8:23pm - which was a good start) but the food arrived 1 minute later (8:24pm). My son's fish and chips, my mam's prawns and the patatas bravas looked like they had been cooked hours before and reheated, which given the 2 minute from order to plate is likely. I told the waiter that we couldn't accept it as we expected freshly cooked food. A minute later (8:25pm) the waiter who originally served us came back with the food and over the next minute or I had the him tell me that 2 minute food was freshly cooked to order, before the bald owner came over (8:26pm) and told me the same thing. I told him that we would finish our drinks and pay for them but I could not let my family eat food that wasn't cooked fresh. I was told to follow him to the kitchen repeatedly but I told him I didn't need to see the kitchen because cleanliness wasn't my issue the 2 minute turn around was. After a few minutes of this and the restaurant all now looking at us he produced our receipt and his phone and showed us that the order was placed at 8:22pm and it was now 8:29pm. 7 minutes but as I explained to him we had spent 5 minutes sending food back twice, explaining to multiple waiters and himself what our issue was and we had been barated by him for a few minutes. He then told me that I still had to pay for the food or he would call the police. I told him to call the police as I knew I hadn't done anything wrong, but that I would not be paying for the food. After his threat of calling the police didn't work he returned to telling me to follow him to the kitchen. I asked him to call the police at which point he grabbed the drinks from the table and told us to get out. We were happy to leave as the thought of having to sit there to finish drinks wasn't something we wanted to do. Once we walked through the "restaurant", with everyone now looking at us, the owner again started to tell me to follow him to the kitchen. While trying to ignore him at this stage he grabbed me by the shoulder and insisted I follow him. I stopped and told him to remove his hand from me. At that point he completely lost his temper and put his head towards me and started aggressively saying something to me in Spanish. "Puta" was the only word I could make it out (I've watched enough Spanish footballers shout that at referees on TV to know what that means). At this point my son was in tears and I had to try to quickly rush up the road to try to console him. We ended up going to Pasta e Basta up the road and had a lovely freshly cooked meal and my son was delighted watching the chefs making the pizzas.

I have never in my life been marched out of a restaurant and definitely never had an owner grab me and square up to me for not wanting to follow him to the kitchen but to scare and upset a child is disgraceful. This is by far the worst place I've ever stepped foot in and I'm glad his petulance meant we didn't need to pay...

We were recommended this place as one of the best spots for paella — and it truly lived up to the expectations. The paella was fantastic, and the sangria was also delicious.

We enjoyed it so much that we decided to return the next day, right when they opened, just to have a dessert and a glass of sangria before continuing our day. We specifically came back here because we already knew the sangria was great and wanted to enjoy it again.

However, the experience was spoiled by the waitress who spoke English. She was noticeably rude when she realized we were not planning to have a full meal, only dessert and sangria. Her comment — “this is a restaurant” — came off as unwelcoming, even though she did eventually bring us the dessert menu.

This attitude felt unnecessary and disappointing. After all, there shouldn’t be anything wrong with coming in just for dessert.

To be fair, the lemon dessert was really good.

In summary, we loved the food and the overall atmosphere, but the unpleasant attitude from the waitress left us with little desire to...

Ok food, nothing very special but we enjoyed it. 3 starters, 1 paella, 1 desert, 2 drinks and coffees cost 79€. It’s ok on face value. However we didn’t realize that they had the ‘menu del día’ for 25€ pp. When I told them we were only given the ‘a la cart’ option, the waiter said ‘you have to ask us if we have menú del día, only then we give it’. In other words, they try to trap you for a la cart and get you pay more for the same food... that’s shrewd behavior, hence two stars!

PS: Don’t order any sauce they offer, especially the romesco sauce. They come in plastic cups and...