Toreros — Restaurant in Eastbourne

Having lived in Spain for 20 or so years; I have been MUCHO-ing around the area for some authentic Spanish Tapas. I came here on a Sunday evening and with only one other table in restaurant- it was very quiet (except for the lovely traditional background music) The first page of the menu reads they have 'a great range of Spanish wines', but sadly the wine list was limited in general and with very little Spanish wine on it.

Our waitress was very friendly and efficient but wasn't from Spain, so she couldn't really answer my friend's questions about some of the dishes. With this, I ordered a selection of well known Tapas for the table. The food arrived in good time, was generally well presented and was great to see it served in traditional clay cazuelas.

By far the best dish were the Albondigas. You get three succulent and sizeable meatballs, dished up in a beautifully rich tomato sauce. The Chorizo al Infierno, has a real kick to it and was cooked perfectly (the menu states it would be flambéed at the table, it wasn’t, but it didn’t matter as it was still tasty) The Gambas al Ajillo tapa consists of 4 big shell on prawns (I don’t mind getting messy!) sautéed with garlic and white wine. Typically in Spain this dish is served sizzling but it came exactly how it was described on the menu (still lovely) The Patatas Bravas were not Patatas BRAVO, like I had expected. They were undercooked for me and the sauce wasn’t spicy like it should be. The Seafood Paella de Marisco Tapa was a real let down unfortunately. There was not much TRES (trace) of seafood in it, apart from a few tiny soggy mussels and the rice was overcooked and bland. I would love to try one of their full size Paellas, as previous reviews were pretty good.

If you are looking for authentic Spanish food then this probably isn’t place for you. But if you want value for money, good portion sizes with a Spanish theme, then it’s worth a visit for sure.

ZFG ordered: Patatas Bravas- £4.95 (fried potatoes topped with a spicy sauce) Seafood Paella de Marisco Tapa- £5.95 (National Dish of Spain. Typical seafood Paella has prawns, mussels, clams and squid in it) Chorizo al Infierno- £5.95 (which means "chorizo to hell,” Chorizo sausage, cooked at the table over a flaming liquid, typically brandy until the skin blisters) Gambas al Ajillo- £6.95 (usually sizzling prawns cooked in olive oil with garlic) Beef Albondigas con Salsa de Toro- £5.95 (Meatballs, usually pork or a mix, served in a rich...

As visitors to Eastbourne, we didn't know the area and happened upon this restaurant. I would not recommend this restaurant to anyone, and having spoken to a couple of locals, apparently it is well know for poor food... It is on the main tourist street, and so I guess gets a lot of passing tourists like ourselves, who don't know any better. We decided to go for the set menu. Initially there was a slight delay bringing it out, but somehow there was a mix up with the tables and our food ended up elsewhere. So we had a bizarre situation where once we received our food, we had several staff members coming up to us during our meal asking what we had ordered.. Had we ordered olives? What drinks had we previously had? This happened on about 5 different occasions, double checking what we had ordered. When we mentioned it as we paid, we were told there had been a mix up in the table numbers.

This might have been fine if the food had been good but sadly it wasn't. When the set menu was delivered, visually I was disappointed. I would have expected more food for the £40. For example, the lamb meatball dish consisted of two small meatballs..to share between us. I think someone else has commented how small the serving dishes are, which was also our experience. Equally, the food was bland.. As someone who loves calamari, and don't think you can get that too wrong, it was not enjoyable to eat. In fact all the dishes were bland, to the point that I did wonder if I had Covid...(but the wine was ok so I don't think I can blame that).

So I would not recommend this place at all..poor quality food and not great service.. For a £60 meal out, that's a lot of money to come away feeling unhappy with...

The biggest slap in the face to the Spanish nation I have ever seen.

£8.50 for 4 tiny Croquetas which were just mush. "Chef's specialty" - I really hope the chef isn't Spanish.

The presentation of the Chorizo was absolutely unappetising and unappealing in all aspects. I was shocked to not see any pork chorizo on the menu, and what was served was beef chorizo? Maybe it was a cheap alternative but my god was it awful. Never have I ever seen beef chorizo served in any Spanish cuisine?

There were 6 of us, all of us left our food. Everything was tasteless, overpriced and overall disappointing.

At the end of the meal, the server asked if we enjoyed our food and we felt like we had to be honest. He tried debating with me about the presentation of the Chorizo, as I had not touched it. I tried speaking to him in Spanish hoping he would know what he was talking about. He didn't. He protested and claimed it was fine. It really wasn't.

I have lived in Madrid for 14 years. I was not expecting top-notch fine Spanish cuisine, however, if you are going to label yourselves as a Spanish restaurant, at least get the food right before you charge extortionate rates and argue with customers about its authenticity?

I'd give 0, but sadly I can't. Please...