Casa Balcells — Restaurant in Tarragona

Unfortunately I must say that my experience of the food was not good. I started off with the artichoke flower which is described as being accompanied with Iberico jowl and egg yolk. Perhaps I just chose poorly, but that description I found to be misleading when I received my dish. The majority of what was on the plate was the artichoke (okay, fair enough, it is the star of that dish), but I found myself having to look for the other components and being disappointed that it came with a meager three very thin (virtually transparent) slithers of the ham. And as for the egg yolk; I imagined it as a whole egg yolk nicely placed in the centre of the dish - but no, there was just a few light dollops of half cooked yolk spread around the plate. A fact that I didn't even realise until I cleared most of the artichoke to reveal the secret hen produce. As for my main dish - the Iberico secreto with potato parmentier, chimichurri, padron peppers and roasted jus - also unfortunately a let down. The pork itself was a maddeningly inconsistent blend of chewy in parts and borderline raw in others, the potato dish was sticky and sweet unlike any mashed potato (which is what this element was trying to replicate, from my understanding) I have ever seen, no such chimichurri made it's way on to the plate..... and the padron peppers hadn't seen a shred of salt (to that point; the whole meal had an overall lack of seasoning). Perhaps I did just get unlucky with the dishes I chose, but between the misleading menu, items being missing, poor portioning, unseasoned and inconsistently cooked food, the overall eating experience was not good. This is a shame as I mainly decided to go to this restaurant based on reviews and reputation and quite frankly, I was let down. As a side point - I originally wanted a paella but the restaurant demands that paella is ordered for two people minimum. Just something I wish I had...

Location is amazing but service wasn't great and food either. We arrived at 22:30 and asked if they had a table. They said yes. Once inside, they asked us to go upstairs, once upstairs they said that better go downstairs, so we seated downstairs, two minutes after, they told us to go upstairs that we will be better. So practically forced us. Two minutes after, a waiter come over asking for our order and we commented that we weren't ready and he left but come back another 2 minutes later telling us that we needed to order ASAP as the kitchen would be closed in 20 minutes and rushed us to order. We asked for two more minutes and in effect he came back 2 minutes later and we ordered some paella. He was reluctant to take the order as he said that now the kitchen wasn't ready to order paella, so we asked him to double check as nobody hasn't told us anything related to that. Long story short, we couldn't order what we wanted and order a burger. I ordered it medium rare but came completely well done so I didn't eat it. Meat was average anyway. So in the end I had a bad dinner, bad experience and they didn't even apologise for anything or at least deducted the drinks as courtesy for the chain of incidents and disasters. So I don't recommend this place for dinner. Maybe a cofre next to the Cathedral in the morning...

Beautiful restaurant in a beautiful setting. I don't think I have ever eaten in a more historical wonderfully lit setting under the eaves of Tarragona Cathedral. The food was served quickly by very efficient staff but I ordered the eggs with ham and caramelised onion, and my wife ordered a cheese and ham flat bread. Since my stay in Tarragona, I am now on my 4th day, I have had this dish in 3 different guises (the eggs and ham) this was the first time it had been served with caramelised onions and with no egg white on the plate just the runny yolk. For me this style did not work, for many it probably would. I found the onions had a very very sweet taste and sweet and egg yolk does not go together but this is my personal preference. The potato's were perfect the ham was perfect but it just wasn't to my taste. Unfortunately my wife's flatbread (which was fine) arrived just as I was finishing mine. The price charged for these two main courses was a little expensive for the amount of food served but we didn't mind as we knew we were paying for the wonderful location. An unforgettable meal in an...