La Carboná — Restaurant in Jerez

I was really struggling with this review.. Wanted to go 4 or 5, thinking about 3. Phew, this is going to be long, sorry!

The food is wonderful. Perfectly balanced with the wine. I was there on a Thursday evening, had the solo Palo menu.

Started out with an experienced waiter.. information about wine/beer/god was perfect.. and as the evening progressed - phew..

The few experienced waiters (just my personal experience) where busy waiting on tables with more people on them. And of course (which I respect) had to talk to the local regulars.. understandable and good service.. Leaving me with introvert and less experienced waiters serving the food with little or no information - one dish was put in front of me with words "tunar".. asking about it, was ignored by the busy waiter.. having to guess the dish is annoying, just as going back to my picture of the menu and see what they are serving.

So sad, made the evening really "tame". Would rather have spend 60 minutes more and have them, have time for me as a customer.

Also a piece of advice, for the less experienced waiters.. stop being in a hurry.. during one dish, I was asked 3 times if I was done.. ..... With more than half the food on my plate... If it is not because you are less experienced, but maybe just scared of English. Leave the English speaking tables for other waiters. We are nicely greeted and asked which language we

Again Wonderful, beautiful place. Very nice wine card/list.. but when they are busy, the service becomes mediocre (and that is rasing it a bit).. sorry, but that was my experience!

After they got busy, I was lucky to get a short while with an experienced waiter..

After thinking it through.. cutting it down to 3 stars. But mostly because I felt like a 2nd class customer the latter half of the evening.

Will I come back.. probably.. the food and wines are wonderful. Value for money is through the roof. There are knowledgeable waiters there and good service (most of the time). But next time, I will demand more!

And finally - raised or back to a 4 star.. for the lat me, I was lucky that a knowledgeable waiter was serving the wines (might have chosen them?). Food was still "thrown" in front of me, except for two dishes served by the mentioned waiter. The wine experience was 5 star worthy for the last meals.

Again, I might have been caught in a moment of them being very busy. But this reflects my experience.....

This restaurant is in an old bodega and looks the part of a smart place to treat yourself. Back home in Paris, this would have set alarm bells ringing. Décor soigné in the dining room usually means the kitchen is an afterthought. But poor food is rare in this part of Andalucía so we threw caution to the wind, urged on by the beautiful cavernous interior. The owners throw the doors open to show off the vast, open plan space and draw in gullible tourists intoxicated by an unwise second fino and the gushing reviews below this one. Well, gush on this, Carboná of Jerez: the food was terrible and the service so bad it stirred pity rather than anger. Granted the Spanish like their steak to rest on the grill a mite longer than the French diner, but my solomillo was so dried out it resembled a meat flapjack. My companion's choice was the almadraba tuna, a dish fondly remembered from happier moments spent in Zahara de los Atunes. Rubbish, chewy meat is one thing, but bad fish is on another level of foul. This restaurant advertises a tasting menu so clearly has certain pretensions. With the tuna, we think they were trying to achieve a mi-cuit/seared effect. This approach requires two conditions to be in place: the grill must be really hot and the fish must be very fresh. La Carboná met neither of these conditions so this fillet was more incubated than seared. Both of these dishes were tasteless (probably a mercy) and were accompanied by a bagged salad with brown fringed lettuce and disgraceful tomatoes. The service ran the gamut from bemused to confused. A succession of blank-faced staff appeared and suggested more wine but did not ask if all was well. They only really sprang into action when trying to relieve a neighbouring party of their desserts before they'd finished. We left after the main dish and no questions were asked about why we'd eaten just a few mouthfuls. I would have requested the libro de reclamaciones but I needed air not an argument with the people that cynically serve up such trash. I hope this review will cost them more money...

Terrible. Maybe the head chef was on vacation, maybe it was an ‘off’ night but the food was terrible. So bad I’m shocked it’s in the Michelin guide. I’ve eaten suckling pig across Spain for over 15 years…this suckling pig was a ‘press’ of cuts but had chunks of bone and cartilage…not whole bones, cuts and chunks. Then we got to the filet steak/solomillo…well…we were asked how we wanted it cooked. Medium rare we said; what we got was medium well, with an additional element of chewyness. We asked for it to be sent back and a fresh one prepared, medium rare. A fresh piece of meat arrived which was blue. It was practically ‘mooing’. We flagged this to the waiter and he immediately understood. At this point we said we no longer wanted to carry on with the meal and asked if we could send both dishes back and close out our cheque. The manager insisted on charging us for the suckling pig because “that is how they serve it “. I can only assume that they choose to serve their suckling pig with chunks of cartilage and bone included. Remember not whole bone but chopped chunks of bone and cartilage. As a result we paid €109 for two bottles of water, a bottle of wine (€35) two x starters and one bony/cartilage riddled sucking pig.

Interestingly, there was a table of six Spanish customers who ordered a best amount of food but left rather rapidly. Not quite sure why they left rapidly but they did leave within five minutes of receiving their meat course. Fast amounts of food and wine were left at the table.

Make of that what you will.

Total rip off. A chef who doesn’t care for the meat and quality of the produce that he has. A chef who is so concerned with being childish and sharing a piece of steak that he would rather serve cooked poorly then cooked to the request of the customer. Avoid...