El Traga — Restaurant in Seville

Alright sports fans, are you a tourist wondering if you should eat here? Do you frequently look at Google reviews and wonder who this person is and whether you can trust their palette? Do you wonder, when looking at Google reviews of say, a seafood restaurant, is this person from Des Moines or New Orleans? Are you perplexed that someone who has enough money to fly around the world and eat here doesn’t know how to use paragraphs in their review? Look no further.

I am a pasty corn-fed white boy from Chicago and my wife is a not quite as pasty woman from China. We are both working professionals and enjoy all types of food from cheap taquerias to expensive tasting menus. If you are also from Chicago and wonder if you can trust this review, here is a taste: Monteverde, S.K.Y, Tesfa, Aba, and Kie Gol Lanee are some favorites in our rotation Big star, Au Chaval, Next, and Little Goat are over rated but decent.

We mostly agree on restaurant reviews, but not on this one.

Overall: Pasty White Boy Rating: 5/5 Chinese Woman Rating: 4/5

We had 4 dishes, a dessert, 2 glasses of wine, and some sparkling water. Our bill was about 76 euro but they may have forgotten to add our wine. Don’t worry, we’ll pay it forward like Haley Joel.

The first rating of each dish is from the white boy:

Russian Salad with Red Tuna Tartare: 3/5 and 2/5 If you’re uncultured swine like myself, you might not know what “Russian Salad” is. Your mind might take you to beets, or perhaps cabbage. But for you fellow Americans, don’t worry, it’s just potato salad. Not poe-tay-toe salad, but puh-tay-duh salad. Being the good midwestern boy I am who never lets good puhtayduh salad go to waste, I gladly inhaled all of this like Kirby. But it wasn’t on par with the rest of the dishes.

Beef Tartare: 4/5 and 3/5 We both agreed this was not the best beef tartare we’ve ever had. My wife, as Chinese are often doing, said it was too sweet. I still gladly inhaled all of it.

Garlic Shrimp 5/5 and 4/5 As you can see, we’re on the right trajectory! When the waiter put the garlic shrimp down in front of us my taste buds were at attention. Huge chunks of garlic, perfectly cooked shrimp, and some bread that looked like gourmet Texas toast. I almost screamed in horror when the waiter begun pouring the “gazpachuelo” sauce over the dish. It looked like some sort of ketchup-mayo concoction and I was terrified that this was turning into an Olive Garden experiment gone wrong. But don’t worry, it ended up being delicious and we cleaned the entire bowl. I finally had to fight my wife over who got to inhale what.

Leg of Lamb: 5/5 and 5/5 No sarcasm, this was amazing and highly recommended. Lamb fell off the bone and we dipped it all up in that delicious jus that came with it. Tasted like home, just like getting my beef dipped.

Deconstructed Cheesecake: 4/5 and 2/5 We both agreed this was not in any way cheesecake. I enjoyed this but would say it was closer to an ice cream cookie dough flavor. But it had these little cookies on top that taste like the ring shaped butter cookies that Salerno sells in the blue box which I love. Chinese wife surprisingly said it was not too sweet, but still didn’t like it.

Wine: It was red, started with an S, and not too sweet. I ain’t a Somali.

Overall: We both agreed for 76 euro we absolutely got our money’s worth. I would go back, my wife said she probably wouldn’t. If this restaurant was in Chicago, this meal would have been close to $200 I’d say, and would probably prevent me from going back. But if you love a good international currency and cost of living adjustment arbitrage, this is the place for you.

Is this authentic Spanish cuisine? Dude, I told you I’m from Chicago. Don’t listen to me.

We showed up on a Wednesday night shortly before open and were unable to get a table. However, they were easily able to book us table for the next day. If you want to eat dinner, I suggest strolling by during lunch.

Staff were friendly and seemed to speak English well but I know enough Spanish to make a reservation and order...

Terrific Food, Attentive Service, Excellent Wine List

We booked a six-week stay in Seville, Spain, to spend a relaxing time in Andalucía. El Traga quickly became our favorite restaurant in Sevilla. It's a slightly upscale place with terrific food, great service, wonderful décor, and reasonable prices. We can have meals that include wine, bottled water, starters, main courses, desserts, for an incredibly reasonable price.

We liked the restaurant much that we had made a standing weekend dinner reservation at El Traga for the entire time we were in Seville. The staff treated us like long-time friends and greeted us warmly each time we came to the restaurant.

We found our favorite dishes among the menu, including a plate of Jamón Ibérico (Iberian ham) to share; the gazpacho, which came with red-shrimp tartar and avocado; raw, red tuna served with black truffle oil and dried tomatoes; the fish dishes, including the red tuna loin with roasted creamed corn; and the many of the “specials of the evening” menu, with the fish and seafood dishes being particularly flavorful. One of my favorites was clams and beans in a broth made of clams, olive oil, and garlic.

Reservations are required, particularly on the weekends. Attire is “dressy casual.”

El Traga was our favorite restaurant in Seville, and we were sad to say “adios” to the staff, but we did get to enjoy six magnificent meals at this...

2nd favorite place I’ve eaten in four cities in Spain.

I cannot say enough good things about this establishment. We choose it just cause it was close to where we were staying and it seemed like we could get a table at an earlier time frame, and the prices were attainable for a normal working slob (me) on a nice dinner date.

Everything was perfect. They did everything they could to accommodate us with pending reservations. We had plenty of time without feeling rushed and with us being conscious of not over staying our welcome (which they went out of their way to accommodate).

It’s elevated dinning, without pretentiousness. Good wine selection, well plated perfectly portioned for two dishes. You have the option to size up if a smaller dish. More importantly the execution was so good. Hands down the best octopus I’ve ever had. Vegetables, fish, meat, accompaniment, presentation. Every single thing was well executed. The staff were also very busy and still managed to stay very charming. I wish I could have told them this.

The only reason it was number two, was a 3 star Michelin in Barcelona. If it was up to me, I would give them 3 stars.

I can’t say more, but all the staff, and chefs were wonderful. Just get a reservation and make it a point to have...