Los Reyes — Restaurant in North Hertfordshire

My husband and I were staying in the Bedfordshire countryside for the weekend to celebrate our 21st wedding anniversary. When booking a few months ago I did lots of research to find somewhere that was guaranteed to give us a wonderful dining experience with some fabulous food. The staff at Los Reyes were all extremely friendly. No probs there. We ordered 7 tapas dishes and excitedly waited for our dishes to arrive. One of the things that diners are told is that dishes arrive as and when they are ready. This is sold as something which 'adds to the unique dining experience' and we were initially okay with that however..... our dishes were SO spread out (they came out in twos and also individually over the space of 30 minutes) and spaced so far apart that the whole meal became completely disjointed. We were eating as we went along because some dishes were hot and we didn't want then to get cold, it was impossible to combine certain dishes together. This, we concluded really is not a process that lends itself to a unique dining experience as described but rather just an excuse to negate the need for kitchen staff to time dishes so that they all arrived within quick succession, allowing diners to enjoy all of the tapas dishes together. Here's a lowdown on the dishes that we ordered and how we found them... Olives - Literally the best olives we'd ever had in any restaurant EVER (every cloud!) Ensalada de garbanzos (Chickpea, orange, fennel, pomegranate, rocket) - Sounded so delicious on the menu - alas, SO tasteless and too oily. It was so poor I was surprised they had the nerve to serve it and charge for it. Patatas bravas - Huge plain potatoes served with a little side dish of 'spiced tomato sauce'. The salsa tasted like passata which had had flaming hot chillies, or a ton of hot chilli sauce thrown in. Just horrible, mouth-burning sludge and not proper tapas style. Champignon al ajillo (Garlic wild mushrooms, quails egg, crostini, truffle oil) - The crostini was so overdone and rock hard (despite swimming in even more oil) that I couldn't bite into it for fear of breaking my teeth (seriously) so had to leave it. The mushrooms were bland, unremarkable and flavourless. Secreto Iberico Iberico pork flank steak, 48hr pork scratching - My husband ordered this dish, the pork was dry, slightly burnt in places and again, lacking in taste and flavour. He didn't finish it. Gambas al ajillo (King prawns cooked with garlic butter) - Another dish my husband ordered as this is one of his faves in tapas restaurants. He was completely disappointed, the prawns had not been marinated and tasted plain, just garlic mixed in with the butter. Piquillo peppers stuffed with lentils - I ate this and it was the most flavoursome dish of the evening. I liked it. Still however unexceptional, just 'nice'. Over the course of the meal it became obvious to us that there had just been no love in the preparation of the dishes we received. It all just tasted like shortcuts had been made with every single dish, NOT what one should expect for the prices. We were so let down, having booked so long ago and having a lovely reason to celebrate and be excited. We declined a dessert and spoke with our waiter, explaining really politely why we felt so let down. He was lovely and we stressed that it wasn't his service that had been the issue (he had been great) it was the totally low standard of food. He subsequently spoke with one of his seniors and as a result was told that we could have 50% discount which we thought was okay. Having then gotten the bill however, the 50% discount was only applied to the pork dish, i.e a discount of £3.75!! This just felt like insult was added to injury and we sadly just paid up, tipped the waiter for his kindness and left. We're not usually moaners and I hope that others who visit after us get a lovely meal and exactly what they pay for. For us though, this was just so underwhelming and disappointing, and that's me...

I understand it's tapas but portion sizes are ridiculous for the prices.

Not many healthy/vegetable options so I ordered the tomato salad to go with my lentil stuffed peppers (which were lovely but could have done with more for the price), unfortunately myself and my friend couldn't eat it as there was far too much vinaigrette. We asked to exchange it for potatos and the waiter was amazing and did this for us without hesitation (she also let us know soon after that the chef agreed there was too much dressing on the salad so we were glad it wasn't just us being fussy).

My friend ordered 8 prawns for £18 which she said tasted nice but sadly wasn't worth the cost since most of it was shell. They also didn't provide free tap Water for the table like literally every other restaurant does, as their water is "filtered" and put in a glass bottle 🥴 Service was great.. staff were very attentive, welcoming, approachable and had great knowledge of the menu.

I'm happy to pay fine dining prices for food but felt the prices here were crazy considering the sizes of portions. I've never experienced such high prices for a tapas menu tapas and no option for a full meal before and for this reason I wouldn't return in the future. If you're looking for Tapas in Hitchin, I'd...

Visited on a Sunday, had booked a table beforehand. It wasn't too busy, which I appreciated. The atmosphere was great and the restaurant and its facilities is very clean. There are baby changing facilities available (as seen on the photos). It was our first visit to the restaurant and we are overall happy as the food was very good and tasty, but is quite overpriced for the potion sizes (for example we paid £12 for the goat cheese, yet it was literally six bites). The lady who served us was pleasant and helpful (we asked her for a family photo and she was very willing to do it), so I was happy to leave the 10% service charge that is added to the bill (see photo attached). Overall, I would say this is a nice place for a date (i.e. if you're trying to impress someone) or a special occasion celebration, but not for a "lets just grab a bite to eat somewhere" situation, as you really would need to spend a small fortune to feel fully fed here (which I appreciate is a tapas restaurant, so portions aren't likely to be huge, but still - they felt tiny, even for tapas in my opinion). I am unlikely to return for a visit, but do not mind having visited this one time - that is the best way I can sum up my experience...