Bar 44 Cardiff — Restaurant in Wales

Very good food, just a couple of issues holding it back from 5*…

I'm a fan of this business, following their ventures, having purchased their recently released cookbook and work in the media e.g. one of the owners' BBC Radio Wales interview on 13/1. The 44 Group is a real success story for hospitality in south Wales. We have visited their restaurant in Penarth during Jan 2021 and had a really good experience. We’re still keen to try Asador 44, despite our sub-par experience here. Positives: food - taste, texture and presentation was fab. It was fresh and hot. Portion size was not so great; stingy to say the least. Wine and drinks were great. Prices were very reasonable too. Negatives: we were told the orders needed to be submitted by 21:30 or 22:00 - I can’t remember which. Bear in mind our booking was for 21:00, leaving us with not a great amount of time to decipher what and how much we wanted to eat, blissfully unaware of (lack of) portion sizes. I've worked in a kitchen and I get it; the chefs want to start packing up and cleaning, perhaps prepping for the following day - however we felt hurried to make a call as to how many dishes we ordered, not knowing how many dishes we would need. It was our first visit to Bar 44 Cardiff but we found the portion sizes miserly - at other tapas restaurants, including Bar 44 Penarth last year, we have been more satisfied with the volume of food provided. On Saturday, we went to another establishment for dessert and we're not sweet people in that sense - showing how hungry and unsatisfied we remained after leaving Bar 44. What ended things on a sour note (hence led me to writing this review) was the DISCRETIONARY service charge added at the end of the night and being non-consensually charged this. Either the waitress doesn't understand the definition of discretionary or she ignored it or felt a service charge is obligatory for the customers to pay. The paying members of our group told the waitress their respective due sums to pay (minus the 10% discretionary service charge) yet she still named the price including the added 10% discretionary charge - we felt the service didn't merit the additional 10%, hence we didn’t want to pay it. We are non-confrontational people and didn’t want the drama nor awkwardness of correcting her, well aware she’d like had a busy evening. The fact she either deliberately or accidentally ignored our wish to pay the bill minus the service charge - yet still added it to our final sum total - left a sour taste in the mouth. We like 44 Group but these negative points took away from what was a birthday meal for one member of our group (stipulated in the booking - we were half-expecting some reference or celebration of this). We left unfulfilled and slightly...

Overpriced for what you get. I had been walking past this place a lot and wanted to go in for a while. Went there today for lunch and wasn't satisfied like I should've been. We ordered the iberico croquetas, which were more filled with a creamy substance, no actual pork pieces in them, just slight flavour of pork that only my partner could taste you get 4. Had tomate bread which was ok, just bread with tomato on it, you get 1 slice for £3. Had patatas bravas, which i would say was the best thing we had, which is sad because its just potato so not hard to do, they dont cover the potato in sauce, they lay the potato on top of a smear of sauce on the plate which was pretty cheap, about £5 they were. There was a seasonal tapa we had, tartare tuna and dill with some sauce on a cracker, but they literally just give you 1 cracker, had to cut it in half to share with my partner, for £3.25, that was a joke really, tapas are for sharing. Had the chicken in sherry with hazelnut, chicken was nicely cooked but quite a bland flavour, even though it was covered in sauce. Then last and definitely worst value for money were the chilli prawns, they ask you to pay £8.80 for this, when it arrived, there were 3, normal sized prawns, not even king, in the oil with chillis on it, when we ate it, there wasn't a hint of spice at all, no flavour, and the prawn was grainy and had a sandy crunch in your teeth like it hadn't been washed properly, was very disappointed with that. Got our money back on that one thankfully. Service was also relatively slow, no offer on second drinks and left empty plates on our table until the time we picked up the bill....

Dear Manager,

I wanted to share some feedback about my recent dining experience at your restaurant. First, I’ll say that the food itself was well-prepared and thoughtfully crafted, which I appreciated. However, I encountered an issue with the timing of the dishes that significantly impacted my meal. Out of the four dishes I ordered, two—the ox cheek and the artichoke—were enjoyed cold by the time I eat them.

I was dining alone, as I have before, and knowing how this can sometimes play out, I specifically asked the waitresses to bring the dishes out staggered, one after the other or two and two.Their response was that it depended on the chef. With all due respect, I’m the one eating the food and the one who will eat the food cold—so whose experience should this be tailored to? I understand that this is a tapas bar/sharing experience, but if someone is alone and request something, please… In the end, they brought the croqueta first, which was fine, but then the other three dishes—octopus pasta, ox cheek, and artichoke—arrived all at once. The pasta was the largest dish, and by the time I finished it, the ox cheek was no longer hot, and the artichoke was completely cold.

The waitresses were attentive otherwise, and I didn’t send the dishes back out of respect for your establishment. However, as I paid and said goodbye, I shared my thoughts with the waitress. I hope that the next time I visit—if there is a next time—my request to have the dishes served with proper timing will be respected. If not, I’m afraid I won’t be able to return, as I’m not willing to eat cold food again.

Thank you for your attention to...