Dama de Elche — Restaurant in London

Simply atrocious. We ordered around 7 tapas dishes including paella. Not one of the dishes was remotely palatable. We have visited and simply want to warn others looking for a nice tapas. We tried most if not all of the vegetarian tapas and one fish dish.

1. The tortilla was a badly cooked omelette which tasted foul. The egg actually tasted worryingly off. Extremely stodgy and awful smell! Off to the bin it went!

2. Vegetarian Paella: One would have to have a truly acquired palette and penchant for smoky food to eat this. The paella was smoky and I am pretty confident in saying this was probably not how they intended it to be. It had gone through several re-heats and tasted like foul pecorino. Truly ghastly.

3. Aubergine: Very very spicy. Having medical concerns, I asked if this contained any spice/chilli and was told it did not. I had one bite and it was very very hot! How awful that the restaurant lied to me. Very negligent! One bit transformed me into a human flame thrower. I felt quite poorly given my sensitivity to chilli.

4. Croquettes: Worse I have ever tasted. Transported me to what I believe prison food tastes like. So stodgy, the potato clung on for dear life down my throat crying tears as if to say please expel me and do not do commit the travesty of sending me to our stomach! Just blobs of overly processed potato and remnants of quasi vegetables. All frozen fare!

5. Mushrooms: The only decent produce this establishment purchases as they did not appear frozen. Unfortunately the "chef" soaked them in tremendous amounts of vinegar as if it was an act of rebellion for his longstanding service to the restaurant, wishing he would be freed from the proverbial imprisonment at Dama de Elche.

6. "Crispy Cod": This was far from crispy and was remarkably soggy. Puddles of water oozed out with each bite took. Given I was short of my water intake for the day, two bites of the horrendous cod at least took me one step closer to replenish my water levels.

7. Chocolate Mousse: Resembled what I can only imagine happens when you experiment with an aero chocolate bar and put it in a blender with buckets of water. Absolutely horrendous. Was told it was 80% dark chocolate, again a misrepresentation by the restaurant. It was purely "milk."

The food was so bad it reminded me of wet, soggy canteen food. I was told that our dishes do not come with chill. Whilst not allergic to chilli I cannot eat chilli as it does not agree with me and makes me feel rather poorly. I was told the aubergine and cod dishes contained no chilli. However was surprised that they did, and they were fiery! Negligent for them to advise otherwise especially given other customers who may have allergies and get told their food does not contain certain allergens. The paella was the worst! Absolute waste of money. Worst restaurant I have visited in my life.

All in all we had one bite of each or thereabouts and were left with an incinerated intestine. We had to go and order food from another establishment which was actually...

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I was particularly looking forward to trying this restaurant after seeing such positive reviews and recently moving nearby, but was unfortunately really disappointed with the whole experience from start to finish.

The first issue was that they had nowhere to seat us, despite booking. According to the manager groups had turned up saying they'd booked when they hadn't - but surely this is a reasonably simple problem to solve?! Other people that turned up after us (with bookings!) were being turned away as they had no tables for them - so be warned that a booking does not necessarily mean you'll get a table when you arrive!

Secondly, we were sat next to the door - "you'll love it sat here", according to the manager - but upon the third time of the door nearly knocking my drink from my hand I requested we moved to anywhere else but where we were. The restaurant is absolute chaos - staff running everywhere and pushing past people to get food to tables. There were SO many people stood around the restaurant without tables, it did not provide a relaxing atmosphere.

Lastly - the food. Bland, not a good representation of any part of Spain, and certainly nowhere near as good as they believe it to be, unfortunately. "Try the battered cod with chilli sauce, it's great" we were told, so we did - expecting a spicy tomato sauce. We got a piece of soggy battered cod with sweet chilli sauce. What?

The Spanish omelette was possibly the worst I've ever had, anywhere, way overcooked and sapping every last piece of moisture (after the dry garlic bread) from my mouth. The croquetas were bland cheesy sponge blobs, dripping in oil and crying out for some seasoning. Two dishes that were actually OK (but still under-seasoned) were the chorizo in red wine, and the stuffed aubergine.

My only explanation is that all of the people that have reviewed this place have either never eaten in a good tapas restaurant, and/or never been to Spain, and/or have never tasted well seasoned food. Given we nearly walked straight back out when we got there - I'm annoyed at myself for not following my gut instinct and wasting a precious Saturday night on this place. There are an abundance of REALLY good Spanish restaurants a short tube ride away (Salt Yard, Dehesa, Brindisa, Barrafina, Iberica) - so do yourself a favour and go to one of...

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This place is amazing. And when I say amazing, I don

t mean it has just great food...oh, no... it has everything. We was looking for a plce to celebrate my birthday and had to book in advance as it was booked up for the month of January. I mean, who eats out in January? Everyone is low on finances and fattedned up over celebration period yet this place was booked up . Eventually we managed to get a booking near my birthday and had the best experience ever. tapas. Oh, taps. there is no way you don

t love tapas but here we had the best ones. Myself, my wife and our daughter were sat at a table for 4 so when the order came in , the table looked so small. I mean, we ordered what we thought we should try out and it looked terrific. Seafood, the prawns and garlic along with the patatas bravas, were delightful. The white wine the owner recommended was thrilling. To be honest I can say our taste buds were properly spoiled. Not to mention the fact that the restaurant is right across the street from Wanstead Underground station which has the Central Line running till morning during weekends. isn`t that great. We moved from the area and we miss the place so much that we booked another visit. We cannot wait to eat there again. Thank you so much...

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