La Viña Tapas Bar Restaurant — Restaurant in London

Having lived in the area for over a decade, we finally found the occasion to visit this quaint and well reviewed tapas place.

Positives: the building interior is lovely, with a porch and cozy candlelit tables. The service was friendly enough, though it seemed a bit understaffed.

Negatives: with a heavy heart, I have to say the food. First, look underneath the bread; it has the marks of an industrial bakery (looks like the baguette from Tesco, and wasn't fresh). With so many local bakeries within literal blocks of this place, it was the first disappointment.

We ordered two chicken dishes, and the meat that appeared was entirely chewy, dark cut-offs, fat, gristle and with some small bone. It tasted and felt like the bits of a chicken that a butcher might discard. I bit twice into bone fragments before giving up. To be clear, this was not an intentional "bone-on" chicken situation. It was a surprise, chopped bits of bone occasionally in your mouth sort of situation.

Aside from this, all tapas dishes that were ordered, including the delicious-sounding aubergine, were swimming in translucent oil: not nice olive oil, either. It was hard to stomach. The tomato sauce that appeared on several dishes was exactly the same and clearly canned, with no hint of fresh ingredients or in-house preparation.

In short, it felt like there was someone back there pouring stuff from various cans into dishes and heating them up. We left hungry (I hate wasting food but truly couldn't finish it).

I'm not snobby about food, but with Green Lanes becoming such a destination for delicious, authentic, inventive and freshly prepared food, walk two minutes in any direction and spend your hard-earned money (possibly less of it!) elsewhere for a much...

I went there last night for the re-opening. As a Spanish foodie, I must say the food is still a long way from being at a good Spanish level. The portions were expensive for the amount they served. SUPER TINY plates. The croquetas had no sight of this creamy bechamel you expect to find, they were hard and weirdly shaped. The pinchitos de pollo were absolutely dry and the patatas in the bravas were previously cooked and did not have the best texture, although the sauce was passable. Pimientos del padrón were ok but you cant really go wrong with those and gambas al ajillo were ok but missing salt. The bread was not Spanish typical bread and they charge for it, which is not very Spanish. It is a shame as the service was good and the place is nicely located next to Haringay station. Keep on improving and maybe I will come back...

It is with a heavy heart that I give them 4 starts but what's more important for the reviews, in my opinion, is the food quality and it wasn't the best tapas I have ever had, and I know what Im talking about as I'm Spanish myself. Some of the stuff like the morcilla and the bacalao croquetes were great but other stuff like the patatas bravas, gambas, chicken or aubergine were just pretty average. Oh and the churros with chocolate, a bit meh. Service was very attentive however they were very slow and pretty much forgot about us a few times even though the place was almost empty. It was good to see that they don't add the service charge by default so the tip is optional, however who carries cash nowadays? Maybe the option on the card machine to leave some tip would be a...