La Brunilda — Restaurant in Seville

Had high hopes for La Brunilda having booked a couple of months ago, and spent time collating reviews from across the Internet but in truth, I think it's not what we expected.

First, having booked at 8.30pm, you wait outside before opening, which is fine, but at 8.20pm, most of the servers all came out to smoke a cigarette in the street where the diners are waiting to come in, grabbing a last smoke before service. Some smoked still wearing the black hygiene gloves, which they probably changed when coming back in, but in front of diners who might not believe that, not a great start.

When we came inside, the decor is lovely, but I don't like the QR code menu gimmick...let me have a menu to look through instead of a phone to stare at.

Finally we ordered: tuna tartar, salt cod fritter, the duck and black ink rice and cuttlefish.

And...meh. We had to admit, everything was underwhelming apart from the fritters. Perhaps we ordered badly, as everything else lacked texture to excite the dish. Tuna tartar was piled and combined so that each soft mouthful merged into the next; the black ink had two rings of cuttlefish, three pieces of tomato fighting to add variety, but not enough to distract from the similarly soft mouthful after mouthful; the much talked about duck, lacked a crispy enough skin to fight through the pillow of carrot, and the peas were dull green, most likely from a jar or tin, rather than the vibrant pop of fresh (or even frozen) peas...all disappointing.

We wondered if the kitchen has lost heart making the same tiktok expected dishes night after night and we ate poor copies of what was once a great dish...maybe it was because the night before, we had stumbled on Bar Alfalfa and had an amazing meal with variety, flavour and texture the night before, and this paled in comparison? Maybe it was an off night...either way, La Brunilda might want to go back to the...

Service was bad. Should have walked away ... Walked in at almost 2pm on 13 Aug 2024, and the place was almost full. I asked a service staff behind the bar as usual 'perdon, una persona, por favor?' and she said they're full but signaled me to wait. So I stood there for a few mins and noticed there was an empty seat at the end of the bar, which was there empty since I arrived, so asked another staff if I could have the seat. She replied to me in English rather rudely, 'NO NO! It's full, there's 8 of them there. We're full. THERE IS NO TABLE FOR YOU!' the tone was as rude as anything I've come across in my life. Didn't say anything and turned to walk out but then heard a voice 'un momento, un momento!' ... Turned and saw the first wait staff motioning to me ... Told me now there's a table at the side of the room and I can have it but need to vacate by 3pm. Should've just left off but decided to stay and have a caña and a chipirón a la plancha before quickly leaving. The chipirón was served on a bed of crumb like mixture that didn't go well with the chipirón but the chipirón was nice. That said, for a few euros more I went down the alley to a more traditional bar and had a whole plate full of chipirónes, which was really tasty too and it was only medio ración. Truth be told looking at menu the prices here aren't expensive but maybe trying too hard to be modern. I could be biased with only one dish and a bad experience. Lady who took my order was the one who was extremely rude to me and could see from her expressions she didn't want...

8:40pm August 14, 2024. To the staff working there this evening, my daughters and I were not even greeted when we entered the restaurant. When we asked a waitress for a table since they did not answer their phone when calling multiple times she asked if we had a reservation to which we said no as we could not get one when we called as someone put us on hold the first time we called and never returned to the phone. The waitress said no I cannot seat you as we are very busy. I asked her what time they have available and she said maybe 10pm, but don’t know I have to look at my list - which she never did. My two daughters were shocked at her behavior. We stood there for almost 10 minutes waiting for her to check “the list”, but she ignored us. We decided to walk out. As we walked past her, she clearly saw us and said nothing but gave us a dirty look when making eye contact….not sure what that was about? My daughters we so excited to come to the restaurant but left feeling very sad and insulted. I hope many of your customers see this review of how customers are treated, see the other negative reviews and you will...