Tapearte Arroceria desde 1992 — Restaurant in Valencia

Very disappointing experience. The restaurant failed on all points: service, food quality, menu options, and even hygiene. I do not recommend it at all.

We were visiting Valencia wanting to experience paella and arroces (rice dishes).

The bad experience started when we booked the place, when the restaurant warned us we needed to select only one paella for the whole table to order in advance. We can understand that the paella needs time to be prepared and thus require ordering in advance, but when we arrived to the restaurant, we still needed to wait 45 minutes for the paella to be served, so what was the point of ordering it in advance? Second problem is with the fact that you cannot select more than one choice of paella per table if your group is less than 8 people (which most parties are). We wanted to try at least 2 paellas / arroces between 4 people (to suit different tastebuds and restrictions), but that was not possible because of that.

Now we would be OK with all those rules if at least the paellas/arroces were worth it, which they were not. Portions were very small (the layer of rice was really thin), not enough for the amount of people present. Taste was OK, nothing extraordinary.

One guest at the table who couldn’t eat from the one kind paella we were allowed to order asked for the beef cut. It came over-seasoned (extremely salty, you can see the salt in the photo), and with barely any garnish (two green beans and a few slices of potatoes). For the 24€ the meat dish costs, a bit of garnish and sauce wouldn’t have been too much.

Seeing the small portions, we asked for a basket of bread to accompany the dishes, but the waiter brought us a piece of baked garlic bread which, even though very good, was not what we requested and was charged 5€ sneakily.

The service was really mediocre, even though the restaurant was full of waiters (there were more waiters than customers), we were not well taken care of. We had to wait to be sat at a table, to get the menu, and to pass our order. It felt like the waiting staff was completely disorganised.

The ladies’ restrooms had no soap and no hand towels nor dryer, which is alarming about the hygiene of both female employees and customers. The baby high chairs were also stored inside the restrooms, which is highly unhygienic.

One last point about having electronic tablets as menus: it is a bad idea. Not practical, no added value, and not environmentally friendly. Just get normal paper menus, it’s better, cheaper, and...

Worst service ever. These men have an attitude like no tomorrow. Upon ordering drinks we asked if it was possible to have a bit of extra ice and lemon with the fanta. The waiter litterally rolled his eyes, made a rejecting noise and walked away. Then we asked to sit inside (where there were a lot of free tables that had no reservation, but we got denied. Mind you, the tables all remained empty for the rest of the night.) Then we asked for them to lower the overhead side flap of the tent we were sitting in on the terrace since the wind and rain came in. At first they rejected our request but later they finally gave in. Long story short, in my experience the words gastronomy and hospitality clearly are not words to describe this restaurant. Really really disappointed for this...

I was recommended this restaurant by the concierge at the hotel I was staying at. It was a little bit of a walk, but Valencia is very pretty and the walk was along the park around sunset so was very pleasant. When I reached there and told them I didn't work any Spanish they provided me with an English menu. However, I decided to ask the server to get me whatever he would order. And that was a great choice. The starter was a sardine with caviar on top of an avocado on a slice of toasted bread with oil. This was followed by an octopus dish that was excellent. The desert was tiramisu and was the only thing at dinner that wasn't necessarily excellent. There was also a lot of cava involved. The service was phenomenal and I would definitely...