El Barril de las Cortes — Restaurant in Madrid

One of the concierge from our hotel recommended this restaurant, as it had gotten rave reviews. Anxious to try something really "Spanish" and upscale, I was impressed upon entering the restaurant and it's beautiful interior. The raisin bread and the Jamon were the best part of the meal. We dressed to the nines for our first real night out on the town, but it didn't matter. Service took a very long time. Ho hum. Bring your needlepoint. Sat down, and once the server realized we didn't speak Spanish fluently, he gave us American menus and then would disappear like a thief in the night, Jason was so thirsty for water at one point, he actually flipped his water glass upside down, because it was dry as a bone, to maybe show a sign to a server, instead the server took it away. Haha. Different customs I guess (even though we had to pay for the water).

We ordered:

Our starter (complimentary) two pieces of sliced baguettes with squiggle piped mashed potato? Tasted like baby food that was broiled quickly by a salamander... one bite of that

Bread - not included, price is 5 EUROS per piece - the white bread was hard and I later thought I should have kept it to throw to get someones attention when we were ignored... the raisin bread was fantastic

Mineral Water 4 EUROS In actual glass bottles, mineral water from where (I'll bet they refill them)... maybe a filter in the back? Hmmm...

Jamon Iberico Bellota (Acorn fed Iberian cured ham) 25.50 EUROS - absolutely the best part of my meal, a huge portion, and very tasty, My reason for visiting Spain!

Croquetas Varidas (Home-made creamy croquettes, different filling every day)13.80 EUROS The ham and cheese were tasty. The ones with fish reminded me of a creamy version of Gordon's fish sticks from the US. Mehhh. Couldn't eat. And the third, even worse, couldn't pinpoint that taste. The cheese shavings? More like the rind of the cheese. Hard as rinds. Comaparable to fiberglass. Inedible.

Carravalseca Copa (2 glasses @ 4 EUROS) 8 EUROS Should have just gotten drunk for dinner

Merluza A la Plancha - bilbaina lomo 22.50 EUROS (this was to replace the inedible meat dish he ordered) His beef was SOOO overcooked, reminiscent of second class airplane slop, or a Hungryman dinner. Took over 45 seconds to cut through with a knife, tasteless and chewy. Not even brown sauce to cover it. Potatoes were also bland AF. His replacement fish (after I had to call a server over and explain to him, (as a chef myself) that his dish was simply inedible and unfortunate, offered him a fish dish not on the American menu. Figures. They must think that Americans only enjoy McDonalds or something. The fish was tastier and the roasted tomato. The potatoes were...

Recommended by our hotel concierge for good seafood and tapas, unfortunately our experience is far from satisfactory. We did not made reservation and decided to visit the restaurant at 9pm. We were received shortly and brought to the table with menu. With quite a long wait, our server took our orders. They offered the complimentary olives appetizers and we did not want since they could be salty. The restaurant manager with black uniform did not seem to be happy that we did not want the olives. It’s quite interesting that they said the olives are complementary but charged for the two buns.

We ordered sirloin steak and lobster and monkfish paella. The sirloin steak arrived first. Upon the first bite we noticed the French fries were warm and soft (not crispy). We asked for medium rare for the steak and it delivered. However the steak was also lukewarm and no searing in the surface. Upon checking with the server he offered to redo it. We appreciate the good gesture.

The lobster and monkfish paella then arrived. We can taste the seafood taste with the paella rice. I noticed a long string of stuff on my plate and upon tasting it, it is PLASTIC. Not sure how the long plastic got in our paella. We showed to the server who brought my plate to the manager. They were very apologetic on the situation and offered to redo the paella. As it’s already quite late and we were quite hungry, redoing it would take too long. They offered not to charge for the paella.

The re-ordered sirloin steak arrived. The French fries tasted slightly hotter and had some crisp. Unfortunately they definitely are not as good as French fries from MacDonald‘s.

With respect to the steak, the cook for medium rare is right, however still not sure how they can cook the steak without proper searing to create a crust on the surface.

One of our water glass is cracked. We notify the restaurant but they did not even apologize for this.

Everything went wrong together. Horrible dining experience.

I would share this feedback with our hotel concierge and would not recommend this restaurant. Definitely not planning to come back. The food is only one star and the extra star is the attempted effort for the server in trying to make...

Save yourself the heartbreak folks, this place is not worth the price, the wait, or anything but it’s pitcher of sangria…

We ordered scallops, razor clams, and paella after having eaten amazing seafood in 2 other places in Madrid and could not have been more disappointed.

We ordered the Paella which has a minimum order of 2 portions (35 Euros per person, so 70 for both my husband and I) and again, it was disappointing - while it looked good in terms of aesthetics it left a lot to be desired for considering we could have gotten better seafood for less at another place. The rice was crunchy and undercooked, it lacked any flavor while somehow having over cooked shrimp and scallops, and was the most disappointing meal of my life.

The only thing that I can say was even worth it is the 23 Euro pitcher of house sangria…

They charge you for bread and mineral water which I guess is countered by a free appetizer (ours was a soup that was decent, and a small bite sized piece of chocolate cake which was also decent - but neither is anything to write home about)

Service was mediocre as well, which I can only attribute to the assumption that we were American - even though I am a native Spanish speaker, our party spoke in English at the table. The tables next to us that spoke in Spanish had plates cleared faster, drinks refilled, and more attentiveness. I thought I was being sensitive but after reading various other reviews it seems to be a pattern of service at this establishment.

For the 141 Euros we spent, I...