Gran Azul — Restaurant in Valencia

My husband, adult son and I had dinner here 12/23/23. We ordered some apps, 2 bottles of nice wine and paella for 3. When the paella came we asked for some hot sauce & our server told us "no, it is good like it is". We all dished it onto our plates & the first bite taken was cold. I touched the paella pan, it was room temp. We spoke with the manager & he proceeded to touch the top of our plates & then took a spoon & tasted the paella that was left in the pan. He told us that what was on our plates was cold because our plates were cold. Mind you, these were the plates given to us. Then he said it was because one of the heat lamps in the kitchen was out. Then he said it was because of the kitchen door being left open. All of that was unacceptable to us. He then took the paella pan, heated it up & brought it back to the table. What what was on our plates was still cold rice. Again we explained that what we had dished ourselves was cold. Then he began tell my son (in Spanish) that it was because we didn't know what paella is. My 30 year old son is fluent & responded with, "excuse me, we have a home in Spain, we certainly know what paella is & how should be served" We were then told that it would be another 45 min for them to make it new. No thank you, we asked for the bill. Nothing was comped and we had no dinner that night. We were all appalled at how the situation was handled. We paid with a different server & even he recognized how poorly we were treated & insisted on us not...

We stopped here for a celebration event for out aunt. She had been before and had fond memories. Decor looks very nice, good layout and staff ratio. Menu looked reasonable too. So, we ordered and then proceeded yo wait about 45 minutes for our starters, which was Jamon Iberico and some cauliflower, not exactly taxing. We also ordered which were then forgotten. After more rounds of bread, which we didn't want, we waited another hour for the main. A rice dice, some meatballs and 4 gambas. Once again, they forgot something and didn't include fries for our daughter. Suffice to say, the meatballs were unpleasant and the prawns, in both rice and on their own, were on the edge of being uncooked. I get different styles, but I can't honestly say the most unpleasant prawns I have ever had. Sufficient to say it actually made me a little ill post the meal. And to top it all, costs 150 EUR. Poor service, poor food and poor outcome. Probably one of the worst dining experiences I...

Food was good and service was great but there's a couple of drawbacks that knock 2 stars off:

Paella Valenciana is shown in the menu to show Duck, which it doesn't. There's debate about what exactly it might include but a rice, chicken and rabbit paella is only made in a region in Valencia called La Albufera where there are many ducks. Duck is not part of the traditional and commonly understood recipe and it's not even a big part of the Valencian gastronomy. It should be made clear that this is a variant and not further confuse the guests, especially if they are international.

We tried the Rodaballo and Ajos Tiernos paella, which was good and well made but was excessively oily and wasn't a 10, more a 7.5/10.

Unrelated but toilets had no soap left and handicapped toilet didn't even have a soap dispenser. The latter is unacceptable, not sure what they...