Otero Bolonia — Restaurant in Tarifa

We were on a road trip and we visited the Roman theatre and the Roman baths. My brother recommended this place in the area. The challenge when we arrived was that they needed a reservation. They said everything is fully booked until 4:30 (the time was 3pm). So it was a big problem for us to wait or go and come back after 1.5 hour especially that we have 14 months old. To cut a story short, after we pushed hard, they gave us a table. Later we realized that there are some tables available. The food was great and atmosphere was very nice at the restaurant. We had fried chipirones and boquerones and ink squid croquettes. Everything was delicious. The staff were very nice and courteous. The only comment I would have for the management is the service or the organization of the service. There were plenty of waiters running around trying to serve customers, but there was no one assigned to a table. We had to speak to multiple ones…. I am sure this can be managed more...

The food was really tasty and good, but I'm not giving them a 5 stars... because we arrived and then 10 minutes later our family also came to eat. They were very unfriendly and not flexible. We asked them for 2 more chairs and they didn't give us an answer, like they didn't even hear us.. We managed to get them by ourselves and 20min later one of the waiters came with the chairs. His reaction, when he saw that we already had them, was to throw them on the floor. He was really stressed out and a little bit angry... We ordered the red tuna and sword fish, very well cooked. The cherry on top at the end was that we parked behind the restaurant, after eating we went for maybe half an hour to the beach and when we returned to the car we got a parking ticket. There was nothing indicating that it was forbidden to park there and the staff...

This is my favorite restaurant in Bolonia. When I was a child my parents sometimes bring me here with al the family when Bolonia was a lonely place difficult to access and the Roman village was totally hidden under the sand. Remember the restaurant (venta) and the owner family working there in that time with no much clients. Now, 45 years later Restaurante Otero and Bolonia are very popular but the kindness of the Otero family and their tasty food stilll as good as before, and the beauty and Magic of Bolonia still there. Wonderful place, unfortunatelly too popular in the high season in summer where you need to be very patient to get a table. All my respect to the Otero family for keeping their great restaurant as good as before and for being so patients with the clients and sometimes...