La Raza — Restaurant in Cambridge

Really disappointed with our experience. We called 30mins before arriving to see if there would be space. The restaurant confirmed there was plenty of space and so we booked a table. There was a short delay when we arrived as the small staff team hadn't got round to preparing our table.

Food had to be ordered on our phones which was understandable for Covid precautions but will be relevant later. We ordered as a big group a bunch of tapas dishes as well as the seafood paella and some drinks. One member of our group ordered separately as she wasn't sure she would like our selection. Her food arrived promptly and she was not unhappy with the fries, tortilla and salad although we had to seek out a server to get sauces and salad dressing. So far, not too bad and we knew our food would be longer as paella isn't quick to make.

Drinks arrive and the glass of Coke looked extremely pale. It seems like the soda dispenser wasn't working properly but this had not been noticed. We brought this up and it was quickly replaced with a bottle of Coke.

Food arrived about 50mins after ordering which was about what I would expect. However upon closer inspection is seemed like many of the dishes had been left waiting under a heat lamp or similar. The chicken was very dry as to be even hard to stab with a fork. The croquettes had lost their crispiness. The bread pieces in the chorizo had turned to mush. It would have been nice to have had the option to get each dish as soon as it was ready to avoid this.

As for the quality, everything was mediocre at best. The chicken was actually quite tasty other than the dryness. The croquettes were bland (salt cod was not noticeable). Chorizo was very watery and had chunks of soggy bread in it. The tortilla was quite nice if a tad unusual being mostly egg with a bit of sweet potato. The calamari was very salty but the accompanying sauce was good. The best dish was probably the patatas bravas. The paella was the biggest let down. It had clearly been prepared in another vessel (or microwave?) and transferred into the pan it was served in. Therefore there were no nice crispy bits to be seen and the whole dish was bland and mushy.

We voiced our concerns at the end and were offered some vouchers for our next visit. The problem with that is none of us want to come back! Apparently a partial refund was not possible because we ordered online but they offered to contact the payment operator and instructed us to do the same. We are yet to hear a response but it has not been long yet.

I really don't enjoy leaving negative reviews but I feel like there are a lot of easy fixes here and I hope they can take...

Had my Birthday meal here on Firday 12th - there was 8 guests who were eating from the tapas menu. Going to be blunt - i rarely write reviews but this was a HORRENDOUS shambles of POOR service and CLUELESS, UNINTERESTED staff. DO NOT COME HERE if you are hosting an event - i was never given a happy birthday welcoming by any staff member, no complimentary drinks and the two males and female who served our table were clueless and purposefully not telling anyone what was on the 241 cocktail menu so EVERYONE got ripped off. One of my cocktails was 241 but the woman who took my order (unenthusiastic and almost didn't go round the whole table until i told her to - isn't this your job?) and only came back with one cocktail...i then had to ask THREE TIMES where my other cocktail was?? Terrible - they clearly couldn't be bothered and thought I wouldn't notice. Also towards the end two couples also decided to join out table who weren't even part of our group so no monitoring of who was coming over and plonking themselves down? Sort it out guys - myself and my guests were pretty disappointed by you - you made no effort considering it was briefed to Jack Brett (AM) that it was my birthday? 1 extra star for the food - this was the only decent thing! Wont be...

Don’t waste your time and money

I don’t particularly enjoy leaving negative feedback for a restaurant, however my experience dining here for lunch yesterday has motivated my to do so to dissuade others from wasting they’re time and money at this establishment.

We ordered cod croquettes and a seafood paella. They were both terrible. The croquettes were bland, tasteless with no discernible texture and fell apart.

We were told when ordering that the paella would take 20-30 mins as they were cooked to order. The result was certainly not worth the wait (see photo).

The dish which we received resembled a savoury porridge, a veritable insult to paella. The rice was clearly over cooked with a mushy texture, the prawns were flavourless and overdone, the squid was rubbery and bland. It is clear that this restaurant is not authentic, and the staff have no idea how to cook paella.

When we provided feedback to the staff after our meal the response we got was ‘the seafood lets out a lot of water when it is cooked’

Please avoid this place at all costs this was a waste of time and money, and to our dismay we discovered the local market, a short walk away, had a paella stand which looked freshly cooked for a fraction...