Cadiz Tapas Restaurant & Cocktail Bar — Restaurant in Dartford

We had an absolutely awful experience here so I'm surprised by all the positive reviews! We attended the restaurant on a Saturday afternoon without a reservation. We ordered a bottle of rose wine initially, as well as four dishes from the tapas menu. We were told shortly after that the wine we ordered was unavailable, so we ordered a different bottle of rose wine (there were only 2 rose options on the menu). Our water arrived and nearly 15 minutes later, we were told the other bottle of wine we ordered was also unavailable. So we ordered a red wine which was taken from the large wine rack on the wall (next to...and I counted...34 bottles of rose coloured wine). We didn't say anything and accepted the red wine. We were then told one of the dishes we'd ordered was unavailable (octopus). So we ordered a sea bass dish instead. The food arrived and, whilst the garlic mushrooms and patatas bravas were nice, the tomato on bread was a light pink watery blended tomato puree on warm bread. We ate it anyway. The sea bass however absolutely STANK! I've never smelt anything so disgusting. It didn't even smell like fish, it was absolutely rancid. We promptly wrapped it back up in its foil wrapper and had to move it to the end of our table so we didn't have to smell it (we still could). The waitress came over whilst we were still eating our other dishes and asked 'is this finished?'. We said yes, not wanting to cause a fuss. She felt the weight of it and unwrapped the foil to look inside, looking ready to criticise us for not eating the dish (throughout the meal this particular waitress appeared angry, confrontational and was quite rude - she clearly didn't want to be there). I told her it smelt so bad we couldn't even consider eating it. She smelt it, said nothing and took it away. She didn't offer us anything else from the menu, didn't report back to tell us if that was how it was meant to smell, she simply didn't address the issue at all. This place advertises itself as a wine and cocktail bar, we could see numerous spirits behind the bar where we were sitting but didn't receive a cocktail menu so we were unable to have a cocktail. We were asked 3 times by 3 different members of staff if we would like dessert...we definitely didn't. We asked for the bill asap and we were pleased to see we hadn't been charged for the rotten sea bass, we were not pleased to see we had been charged for 2 bottles of wine (one of which was the one we were told was unavailable). Obviously, we brought this up with the waiter who took one of the bottles of wine off the bill. There was no apology for the whole shambles, no explanation for the rotten food. I definitely wouldn't recommend and will not be...

An absolutely horrendous experience and I will never return. Visited here last night as a group of 15 for my work leaving-do. When we called to make the reservation we asked if they would like a pre order and they said no they will manage, which was not the case. When we arrived, we were advised to make our food order but we had informed the waiter we weren’t ready as we were still waiting on 2 more guests… they told us that they will just make a note of it and made us order our main. The food then all came out at different times, with some people waiting over an hour for their food. A man (who I assume is the owner) approached our table very aggressively, shouting and swearing at us telling us that the service is messed up and he listed what food is yet to come out, which did not include 2 of my guests main dishes. When we queried this and said that this was not our fault that the waiters / kitchen had messed up our table order, he replied that he ‘did not care’ and we will wait 2 hours for anything ordered now, whether it is a small dish or not and refused to take any more food orders (so 2 of my guests did not eat).

He then proceeded to shout at his (young) staff in front of the whole restaurant which was very awkward and and then went on to shout at a couple who had young children present, where the couple ended up leaving the restaurant due to the verbal abuse they received. The owner then asked the whole restaurant very confrontationally if anyone else wanted to leave (which it appeared every single customer did).

Following this, one of the waiters, asked if we had any empty plates, despite that some of my guests were still eating, and the kitchen porter (KP) came out of the kitchen with his bowl to clear our table with the waiter. It was very apparent that the staff were quite unknowledgeable but were working under very tense conditions.

Food was ok, nothing spectacular. The whole evening felt like we were being pranked and was frankly bizarre, I have never experienced anything like it. We were a very laid back table as we were busy chatting for this occasion, and we paid the bill in full, which in hindsight we shouldn’t have. I would absolutely avoid at all costs and will advise all my friends to not visit this establishment which is a shame as it has the potential to be a lovely place under...

We have been here twice before and couldn’t fault it hence returning again. Unfortunately this time was very disappointing, the service staff were lovely as always however none of the steaks or lamb available which limited the small menu. We had flamed chorizo as a starter which was ok then chicken and chorizo paella which consisted of a couple of chunks of chorizo and 5 of the tiniest chicken drumsticks I’ve ever seen, the rice was clumped together very stodgy and tasteless it was very disappointing. Sticky toffee pudding and ice cream was delicious but I doubt made on site. Later in the evening there was a party in the other side of the restaurant the music was very loud and the staff locked the front door where we were seated and disappeared into the party area. They occasionally popped in but it’s not the same as having them there all the time, we would have ordered Baileys etc but decided to go somewhere else in the the end rather than wait for staff to turn up. The door to the party kept opening with party goers coming in through the restaurant to use the toilet and every time the door opened the music pounded even louder into the restaurant making it difficult to hear each other speaking and was very annoying. We won’t be returning again, all I can say to the restaurant owners is; don’t neglect the business that has done you so well in the past for a Saturday night party. If you keep doing that your quality of food and service will drop further and you will lose regular customers which are your bread and butter. Also the toilets are disgusting dirty floors and walls, toilet paper all over the floor and generally dirty they’re clearly not regularly checked, such a shame to see such a lovely restaurant go down...