Bar Charra — Restaurant in Santiago de Compostela

Bar Charra – Disappointing Food, Great Peppers, and One Memorable Scallop Shell

We visited Bar Charra during a day trip to Santiago de Compostela. Unfortunately, the experience didn’t quite live up to expectations.

As many others have mentioned, the service was lacking. We had to flag down the server just to place our order, and she wasn't helpful when we asked for recommendations. Thankfully, we came prepared with a list from our tour guide Carol of what to eat locally.

We ordered the octopus, squid (with fries), a single scallop, Padron peppers, and beer. The squid was unfortunately overcooked, rubbery and inedible, especially for the kids. The octopus was decent; the paprika on top gave it a nice flavor.

The scallop came served in its shell, and while the portion was tiny, our 5-year-old absolutely loved it, mostly for the shell, which she cleaned, kept, and played with all day. It became the unexpected highlight of the meal.

The Padron peppers were hands down the best part. Perfectly blistered and salted, they were our favorite dish and saved the experience from being a total miss.

I was a bit nervous about using the restroom based on previous reviews, but the ladies’ bathroom, though tiny, was clean and not an issue.

Overall, Bar Charra had some bright spots, but between the inattentive service and inconsistent food quality, it wouldn’t be our first choice...

We were having a great time in Santiago until we had the worst experience in Bar Charra. Me and my family ordered several dishes and the waitress asked us if we wanted fries and peppers with a meat dish, we understood it was served as siders. After a while the food starts coming and a full plate of fries and peppers comes to our table served by another waiter. We told him we did not ordered that much peppers and asked him to take it away. After a few minutes the waitress that we ordered the food initially comes with the peppers in her hand and starts talking on a high tone with us, saying that's what we ordered. When we tried to explain we thought it was a sider and not a full plate of peppers she just didn't care, we asked to talk with the owner she said she is the owner. After a while everyone was screaming and my young kids started getting afraid of her atitude, we told her to leave us so we could finish our meal and leave. At the end the prices were wrong, at the house favor, but we could not argue any longer and left. It was the worse experience ever in Santiago. The street is full of other restaurants stay away...

Don't know where to even start... Just run away and go somewhere else to eat! We asked for a table and were offered the two worst tables available (next to toilet and a really small one in a corner). We weren't given a menu and had to wait for ages before anyone looked at us (the waitress was even quite close to us), we finally ordered drinks but couldn't get hold of a menu... We asked for one and had to ask twice and wait for 15min before we were given one. We ordered empanada and pulpo (it's a pulperia!! You expect it to be nice) The empanada was as hard as a rock, and the octopus was very chewy, didn't enjoy the meal at alla nd had to wait so long for...