Bar Tal Cual — Restaurant in Xàbia / Jávea

The Tal Cual is a gem hidden in a side street in the Harbour district of Jávea. This place is offering affordable, mostly homemade, fresh tapas of great quality at affordable prices.

Our passionated review does reflect their passion and will be more extensive than usual.

The Tal Cual itself was very busy in the evening, so a reservation might be useful. There are some places located on the calm streetside and some in the bar.

The bar itself is a pool of good mood, with very good music and artful decorated. There is a lot to discover on the walls while you are waiting for your dinner.

We had pan with alioli and a tomato sauce as a classical starter, later a traditional meatball layered in cabbage. It was very delicious because the herbs and well made in hot broth.

We also had calamares, and I'd say you might never had that delicious ones before. Buttery soft inside while crispy outside.

The patatas bravas where not optimally for us because we like them grilled / crispy too, with a bit of hot salsa. But well each cuisine has own preparation methods.

We also had smoked salmon, which might be not homemade but still of good quality and well served and temperated, along with black sesame and some good fruity olive oil.

The cocktails were awesome. You should try them.

All waiters were very friendly and helpful and we loved their passion about their job, so did we appreciate the passion of the kitchen team for doing an fantastic job on the drinks and food we got served.

In our opinion The Tal Cual should be on your top 5 to go list of tapas bars, when in Jávea.

We will definitely return and also try some of the many other things to discover on their rich card of tapas.

See you...

OVER-RATED & EXPENSIVE

The place is overrated by a lot. To start the food is very expensive for what is served. A mix salad (very typical is Spain: mainly tomatoes, tunna, corn, boild egg) was priced 13 euros y consisted only on a bunch of greens with 2 pieces or tomatoe (literally) half a boil egg (not even an entire egg) and a tiny amount of tunna. Tunna tartar, Thai prawns were very much overpriced and caballo en escabeche was not en escabeche but something else. Food taste was okish, not bad not something remarkable. Full of tourists but no locals, maybe that's a good sign to judge...

Sadly we must have visited on an off evening! All tables outside were reserved, so we had to sit inside. But we noticed that patrons arriving later were told to sit inside, but shortly after were shown to so called reserved tables. We were served our patron peppers reasonably quickly but then had to wait close to an hour for the croquettes. No explanation from our waitress as to why the lengthy delay. The bar was certainly not crowded, so maybe short of kitchen staff? Anyway not a...