Mesita Tapas — Restaurant in Exeter

We had a very disappointing and unsafe experience at this restaurant. Shortly after being seated, we overheard another customer raise concerns about the food. Instead of handling it discreetly, the owner dismissed them, insisting they were the only one to ever complain, instead of acknowledging the complaint and continued to say "Well you're the only one to have ever complained no one else has", which now reading another low rated review I disagree with. The owner then came over to our table to repeat this and stated that they wanted a discount, which felt unnecessary and unprofessional.

We ordered several dishes regardless. We enjoyed the food well enough, the flavour was good and we have no issues with the food except it was a bit surprising to see a lot of the dishes go in and out what seems to be a microwave? But maybe it also functioned as an oven?

Unfortunately, partway through the meal a picture frame fell from the wall directly onto my head and back. I screamed and people around the restaurant took notice. After the initial shock subsided I turned and saw that the picture frame was velcro'd onto the wall instead of hooked on, which explains why it fell off and hit someone on the head (in this instance it was me). This left me with a headache and discomfort for the rest of the evening. Staff offered ice and the chef apologised and offered a free drink but the incident was handled far too casually given the seriousness of it.

We also had to request for the 12.5% service charge to be removed due to the incident and suggested that management should consider drilling those unstable decorations in should they injure anyone else in the future, to which the waitress dismissively replied that she didn’t know why management only velcro'd items to the wall. Nothing was said about the fact that they will take accountability and escalate this to ensure this type of incident would not happen again.

On top of this, halfway through the meal the chef suddenly lifted up the floorboards in the middle of the restaurant to retrieve more bread from the basement, without any warning. He did say 'Sorry folks' after coming up from the basement but maybe a warning might've been warranted given that it is a small space.

Between the dismissive attitude, the unsafe environment, and the lack of accountability, this was an overall negative experience for us. The food tasted good so I hope management will take the concerns over health and safety seriously...

Visited the place last Saturday and was extremely disappointed. Was supposed to be a birthday treat. Food was very. very poor. Bread was stale and even covered with “oil” did not improve it. The tapas were tasteless and quite expensive. What a waste of money. We will definitely not visit again. We should have gone for “fish &...

Service was brilliant and the place itself was lovely inside. The food was tasty however, a little too salty for my liking and the same tomato sauce was used in several of the dishes, making them taste similar. Prices were a little higher than expected for the...