La Tortilla — Restaurant in Great Britain

Really more of a 3.5 star visit, with some misses and hits. A bit surprised to find a Spanish tapas place while traveling through Scotland but it is a smaller world every day. Atmosphere felt really authentic. We made a reservation so we were seated right away. Immediately noticed how warm it was in the dining room. After being asked about drinks by the hostess, our waiter arrived and you could tell he knew how hot it was. Then we found out he had a two mile walk to work and that it was his first day! The menu had numerous tapas we were familiar with from time in Spain, making ordering fairly simple for the most part. A bit surprisingly, even if it was day one, our waiter was unable to answer some basic questions regarding a couple items listed as specials. It’s different everywhere I know when it comes to training staff but putting him on the floor without full knowledge or without a shadow staff member is bad business imo. So when asked the questions he needed to find someone else to answer them. One turned out to be simple-what type of paella was the mini version on the special board. The second turned out to be more problematic. I’m very intolerant of spicy food so when I saw a special as Romesco Patatas, I asked if their version of the sauce was spicy. Upon returning I was told no. So I ordered it. We additionally ordered Pan Con Tomate, Mushrooms Sautéed in Onions and Garlic, Jamon Croquettas, and Albondigas-meatballs in tomato sauce. Interestingly, the kitchen appeared to be in the lower level and dishes arrived to the floor by dumbwaiter. Very old school. All our dishes arrived together and looked delicious. I immediately tried the Ronesco sauce and found it overly spicy for me. I politely let a different staff member know and she graciously offered to get me something else. We chose the traditional Tortilla Espanola with onions and potato. Our Pan con Tomate had excellent flavor but the bread was much too under grilled to hold up to the tomatoes and was quite mushy. Unfortunate. The mushrooms and the croquettas were delicious, especially the mushrooms. The meatballs turned out to have cilantro in them which my wife cannot eat, a question we neglected to ask. But I loved them. By this time we had not had any contact from our waiter to inquire how things were going. All needs had to be addressed with other staff. When our tortilla arrived, interestingly it came from the bar rather than from the lift. Could be that this is also on a bar menu and kept in that area. Once it arrived, we immediately noticed that it was barely warm. Also, when we tried it, it was quite dry and crumbly. Another miss. With most of the dishes done well, I would go again, hoping for better all around. And that the young waiter gets the assistance he needs going forward and...

Two stars for the amazing food (compliments to the chef) however the poor service and rude staff made what should have been an amazing celebration of my sisters engagement, one that instead left a very sour taste.

We were a fairly big group and at no point of booking (or even when we contacted the restaurant to amend our time of arrival) were we made aware of a time constraint. We had arrived only ten minutes before our table was booked for and instead of politely asking us if we could wait the 10 minutes for our table, the waitress bluntly said "you're early". Not the best welcome in the world but we let it slide as to not let a little comment ruin our sisters engagement party.

We ordered food and drinks and thoroughly enjoyed our meal, both tapas and paella were absolutely wonderful. Time came to order dessert and upon arrival the waitress seemed to slam our dishes down and offered any other drinks. A couple of us decided to finish the meal with some gins and asked the waitress for these. The drinks came, all good until the waitress came over and slammed the bill down onto the table which nobody had asked for, and then proceeded to come over with the card machine as if to say "hurry up". Those with the drinks hadn't even finished and not even 5 minutes after paying the bill we were told we had to leave. Not at any point before or during the meal were we told we had to leave by a certain time and the waitress took it upon herself to rudely shove us out the door like naughty school children.

It ruined a lovely celebratory meal which was a very special day for us and we certainly will...

As a Spanish group we were very disappointed, not that we where expecting Spanish level of food but at least some resemblance to our food, that said the waiters where really polite and hard working the main problem comes from the kitchen, first of all if you charge for a tapa don't call it a tapa, since the meaning of a tapa is actually something for free that you will have whit the drinks while are waiting for the food if you are going to charge for it we usually called pinchos but that is not know as much, then when we actually get the food "tapas" we where really impressed but not in a good way the sizes of the food was of a normal tapa whit some differences of course but you where charging full price for a portion of a tortilla that wasn't bad at all but not impressive either. And well the croquetas where Ok but the same issue really small amount for the price is like someone in the kitchen didn't get that they weren't free as usual tapas in Spain and was making it look like tapas if you were looking for some regular tapas whit some resemblance to anything from Spain sure go for it but don't expect the real deal, and I only hope the learn a bit from what I sad and hope the best for this restaurant since is kinda an embassy of Spain right there...