Taberna La Española — Restaurant in Madrid

Spain: PRECAUCIÓN EN ESTA CARGA Y YO MI CARGA. Tan hostil como aquí nunca he sido tratado. Después de que cada uno de nosotros ordenó una paella, tuvimos que esperar para siempre, comimos aceitunas malas, el pan se horneaba sin terminar y frío, finalmente llegó la comida local, nuestra paella. Nos quejamos amable y por lo tanto fue retirado de inmediato de las instalaciones. Un no-go. Desagradable, incompetente y al final aún no profesional y descarado. Aquí solo las imágenes en el mapa son hermosas y se desvían considerablemente de la realidad. A la vuelta de la esquina, a pocos metros de distancia, hay un restaurante que comprende su oficio y donde la comida sabe en consecuencia.

German: VORSICHT BEI DIESEM LADEN UND ICH MEINE LADEB. SO unfreundlich wie hier wurde ich noch nie behandelt. Nachdem wir Jeweils eine Paella bestellt hatten, ewig lang warten mussten, schlechte Oliven gegessen haben, das Brot unfertig gebacken und kalt war, kam endlich die landestypische Speise, unsere Paella. Wir reklamierten freundlich und wurde deshalb sofort aus dem Lokal verwiesen. Ein No-go. Unfreundlich, inkompetent und am Ende noch unprofessionell und frech. Hier sind nur die Bilder in der Karte schön und weichen erheblich von der Realität ab. Um die Ecke, ein paar Meter weiter gibt es ein Lokal das sein Handwerk versteht und wo die Speisen entsprechend schmecken.

Englisch: CAUTION AT THIS LOADING AND I MY LOADB. As unfriendly as here I have never been treated. After we had each ordered a paella, had to wait forever, ate bad olives, the bread was baked unfinished and cold, finally came the local food, our paella. We complained friendly and was therefore immediately removed from the premises. A no-go. Unfriendly, incompetent and in the end still unprofessional and cheeky. Here only the pictures in the map are beautiful and deviate considerably from the reality. Around the corner, a few meters away, there is a restaurant that understands its craft and where the food tastes...

Whilst meandering Madrid late at night (23:00), looking for a place for dinner that was not only still open but also had a crowd (to let us know, visually, if the place was popular), we came across La Española. We immediately sat down, ordered two cervezas (received complimentary tapas), jamón (prosciutto), patatas bravas and slow roasted oxtail. This was our first time ordering and enjoying the famous jamón that everyone seems to rave about and now we know why! The jamón is much more flavorful, fresh and scrumptious that what we are used to in the U.S. It is served on a platter with mini baguette crostinis and somehow the meat is so tender, it feels like it melts in your mouth! We would definitely recommend this dish anywhere you go throughout Spain! The patatas bravas is a side dish composed of roasted potatoes topped with a spicy red salsa. This is a dish you will find on just about every single restaurant menu you come across in Spain as it is a staple and quite delicious. The salsa has just enough heat, the potatoes are cooked perfectly and it is filling. Lastly, the slow roasted oxtail was rich and savory. The dish was composed of three oxtail servings over a bed of roasted potatoes and the flavors were decent but not extraordinary. I would say that you have to be vocal when it comes to this place if you want anything from the servers, but after having encountered this throughout our travels in Spain, it seems to be customary to do so. The atmosphere is a bit noisy, but that also seems to be the standard for any restaurant, especially eating out so late. Our server spoke a little English, which helped us out a little bit throughout our dinner experience.

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This place is perplexing! It’s always busy, has a lot of reviews, and is full of locals, however I thought the food was average. I’m not sure if we’ve been super lucky up until this point and have just been eating at the best places or if we just caught the chef on a bad night but I didn’t love anything. They only have full racions which was fine, just a lot of food. We got patatas bravas, which were huge chunks of potatoes that were a bit soggy and the sauce wasn’t really that flavorful or spicy. We got pimentos de predron which were your standard peppers, and a tortilla de patata with jamon which was not great compared to the others I’ve had in Spain. My husband got the paella which was kind of grey in color (can’t tell in the photo bc the light was reflecting off yellow window shades) and had quite a bit excess liquid, overall the flavor of that paella was okay. The servers were HUSTLING all night and I give them a lot of credit for serving the whole restaurant themselves. This place reminded me of the Spanish version of an...