Tribal Lounge beach bar and restaurant — Restaurant in San Bartolomé de Tirajana

This place deserves a full review...

Despite reading a few overly-toxic reviews from early July 24 we still dived into the Tribal Lounge for a cocktail on our first night - as it appeared to be the only bar in the resort that had made an effort to move with the times and provide guests with something different - in this case a unique Afrikana/tiki-bar restaurant experience serving quality food and drink to match...

Tribal Lounge is Ideal for it's equatorial location and a million miles away from its neighbouring cliché Karaoke bars - spitting out wobbly renditions of Niel Diamond and Eddie Grants, Give Me Hope (kinda ironic) - and the large number of restaurants that are more reminiscent of 80's, third-world airport departure lounges, serving up the same old $#!t.

So, we ordered cocktails that were honestly on par with the best we've tried (believe me we've tried a few) and we were surprised to find such qualiry in a resport that sadly seems to have lost its passion and the enginuity to keep tourists interested.

Having had a peak at the menu we popped back for breakfast the next day, which didn't disappoint. As good, or maybe even better than my local cafe at home - either way, who am I to complain when I'm sitting in a restaurant 2616 miles away from home and lucky enough that there's someone out here catering for British breakfast stubbornness.

It's possible there may have been issues with breakfast for people in the past (we can all have an off day) but on this occasion the service was excellent, and the food was on point. Apart from beans being in a ramekin - a personal no no for me but a controversial thumbs up for others.

So last night we dropped in for food at 8pm. I ordered a triple stack burger and hands up - it WAS the best burger I've ever tried. Massive thumbs too up from my fussy 14 year old who also demolished one of their tasty burgers.

My wife ordered a mushroom pizza, of which I watched being tossed, stretched, placed in a clay oven and then cooked to perfection - another 10/10 and a world apart from earlier reviews claiming the pizzas are soggy and shop-bought from Asda. The one that we recieved and devoured was crisp, smoky and oozing with flavour.

I can't just end the review at this point, without firstly drawing attention to the amazing entertainment provided by IDEL EL MULATICO - two very talented young musicians who litterally lifted the roof of the whole beach complex and not just the lounge, with there own take on Latin/salsa songs, coupled with creative latin rapping. 100% check these guys out.

Following a few more vibrant tiki-style cocktails and a generous helping of bourbon, the bill dropped in at €125 - not bad for three 2-course meals, drinks galore and vibrant entertainment I'd likely have paid extra for!!

We paid the bill but ended up staying for a few more drinks when the owner of the bar got behind the decks and began to belt out a load of ibiza house classics until we left around 1am.

Tribal Bar and Lounge is the last one standing - or the first one standing whichever way you look at it and it should definitely be on your Gran Canaria itinerary.

We can only hope that the other bars in the resport see this great place in the corner making lots of noise and follow suit - because the island needs this type of vibe to stay alive and to keep tourists out of the all inclusive boxes that are killing the tourism in the area.

Keep...

Whilst most of the food was enjoyable, the service was not the best on the two occasions we visited and put a slight dampener on our experience here. On our first visit, we were initially told they were out of burgers except one, but nobody could tell us which was available, if any. We avoided burgers and ordered the nachos (absolutely delicious btw!), BBQ calzone and their special award winning pizza (I forget the toppings but it wasn't what I'd usually place on a pizza but still worked perfectly!)

We witnessed problems going on around us with misorders or a main not delivered at all (one poor guy sat near us didn't get a meal at all because by the time it would have been ready, everyone else in his party had finished theirs), long waits etc.

There was was no problem for us until our waiter delivered two pizzas and not a calzone. We queried the order and he took one of the pizzas away, bringing it back and saying it was all they could offer. A pre-warning would have been great, but on top of this, the pizza delivered did not have the toppings that had been offered as part of the calzone and did not resemble anything else on the menu. It definitely wasn't a BBQ chicken pizza though, maybe chicken and basil? It wasn't bad tasting but just definitely nowhere near what my partner had ordered and the "fobbing off" put a bit of a dampener on our night.

Whatever the situation, both pizzas were tasty, the special pizza is something different and I found it to be really enjoyable. What really let these guys down on this occasion was the bad service. All around us, people were complaining and waitresses and waiters were apologising. It seemed as though our waiter was getting orders wrong all over the place (hence a guy not getting a main) and there was a girl also working there getting quite irate with him (understandably I feel!) at one point. I suspect he probably miscommunicated our order. No problem if he did, but we feel the error should have been corrected. We watched people waiting for drinks leave because the wait was so long and it really did feel like a car crash and the total opposite of all the great reviews we had read before our visit. We left without dessert and assumed it was just a bad day so decided to give them another go for breakfast this morning.

On this visit, the English breakfast was enjoyable except for stone cold beans and toast that was more like cracker bread and tasted as though it had been toasted far too long in advance. Unfortunately, I had to wander in to find someone and ask for some sugar for my cappuccino and we ended up having to do the same for the bill as we sat for an unacceptable time waiting for someone to clear our plates.

We really wanted to support this newer business and are still glad that we did. Overall the food was great, albeit with the hiccups involved hence giving 4 stars. We found that their prices are above the average in the area and for the most part, they provide decent enough value, plenty of alcohol in the cocktails but whilst still making them enjoyable! hic. Just for our visits, the service and quality needed to be...

So. I’ve seen very mixed reviews about this place but whilst on holiday me and my boyfriend decided to give it a go. We came twice, one for an evening meal and one for some breakfast.

Our evening meal and experience on this day was fantastic ( we both had the pizza) I can’t fault the food nor the service. We walked away very pleased and left a tip to say thanks.

However…we came the next day for breakfast and were disappointed to say the least. We sat down and were told to wait a couple of minutes which is fine as I think they had only just opening and were finishing setting up. We were sat for 25 minutes without anyone coming over to ask give us menus or ask for our drinks order which is pretty awful if you ask me. They finally brought our menus over and we were able to order food. I’m currently pregnant and made the servers aware that adjustments would need to be made to ensure I could enjoy my meal. I asked the servers if it was possible to have scrambled egg instead of fried. I added that if this wasn’t possible I would like for the fried egg to be taken off of my meal. The server was confused but said yes anyway, clearly just to shut me up. After about 40 minutes of sitting there watching our server carefully place out plant pots, chat to the other servers and get his steps in walking up and down the restaurant…our food arrived. I don’t know why I was shocked when mine arrived with fried egg. I questioned this and another server came over. I reexplained the problem and she shrugged and said no not possible. I just gave up and this point and put my egg on a napkin to find the raw egg yolk had ran all over my plate anyway making it one unsafe to eat really and two unenjoyable. Food apart from this was fine. My boyfriend ate all of his, couldn’t say the same for me. Think it goes to say we didn’t tip this time and after this will probably not return during our holiday after the service we received here.

I can now understand why there are so many mixed reviews when we ourselves witnessed inconsistency with the service...