Tasca Dali — Restaurant in Warwick

Was so I was looking forward very much to attending and having a lovely tasting menu on the 7th September 2024.

I arrived at 6.55 p.m. and was shown to a lovely table at the front of the restaurant overlooking the street. This was good. Looked around the restaurant and the wall decor with Spanish canvasses was excellent, but the restaurant lacked something. It lacked warmth. The tables didn't have any items on, except a bottle of water. Where were the flowers or the "fake" candles? (H&S is important these days). It was not good. Ambience is cruicial. The restaurant was half-full at this time.

A very nice lady who later told me she was the owner attended my table and chatted through how the servings would occur and was happy so far.

19.06 starter arrived. The starter was a lovely platter of Antipasto - very similar to what I buy in store at my local supermarket. The star of this platter was the potato cake and it was good. The rest was good, however, nothing more than I'd dish up for myself as a snack at home.

19.29 Soup arrived. It was nice - nothing wrong with it - sort of soup I cook up on a normal evening at home.

Then the noise started. And quite rightly so, was told "it's a Saturday night and it gets noisy. This is true and one has to understand this and I do. It was extremely loud and the server had to shout in my ear as to what she was serving - it was unpleasant. But not her fault.

19.59 p.m. Mackerel arrived. The dish was ok - the mackerel same as I would cook at home. The one carrot and one petite corn on the cob was ok. The one potato I had so hoped would taste something like I would have in Spain but it didn't - sorry it was not good. It was edible but not good for a Spanish potato that deserved something better - we all deserve better and I felt sorry for the potato.

By now I'd had enough - the noise was appalling due to a huge birthday party attending - not anyone's fault. But what was really annoying was the waiting for service which slowed to snail's pace. One can put up with noise if one is distracted by a really good menu quickly served. Hanging around waiting for the next course whilst having one's ear drums bashed was not good.

At this point the 4 people on the next table decided to escape and left the restaurant without ordering anything due to the long wait. And I was waiving at the server to no avail to ask for the bill - I wanted to escape desparately. Took a while, but eventually asked for the bill - not wanting to continue this venture. The server shouted in my ear "it's Saturday night and very busy and noisy". Yeah right, so employ some more staff or reduce your covers, I thought to myself. So after much ado I got the bill, slightly reduced and then she did a runner! Come back! I want to pay and get of here. I feel like I'm inprisoned - I want to get out of here.

I dashed after her to pay my bill and my card registered the payment at 8.48 p.m. That was 1 hour and 48 minutes for 3 small courses to my escape. You can tell by the photos it wouldn't take a decade to eat those portions.

My relief on getting out the door was overwhelming. I bumped into the 4 peeps who walked out earlier and they said "you escaped then?" - these were regulars apparently from when the restaurant was at a previous site and they were not happy.

I have a feeling that the change of venue has steered this restaurant away from their previous "good reviews" but I might be wrong, who knows?

So to resume: slow service, ordinary food one could buy at the supermarket or cook at home. Like I say to friends, if you do your hair at home and then go to a salon and pay £50 you expect it to look be better than the home do! I expect the same from a restaurant and that...

We were booked in for 4 people on a Friday at 7 we sat down at 7:15 and were given our 1st course within 5-10 minutes then the remainder of the courses were all brought out very quickly after we had finished the previous. After the 5th course desert, we were not offered any tea, coffee or any drinks, instead within 5 minutes of being given the £200 plus bill asked to basically leave please we need the table, so we left before 9pm as a result. The whole meal felt very rushed and were not really allowed to talk or enjoy the food between the 5 courses served. The food was good not great or amazing just good, I've been to La Meza a few times which is very similar dining experience but imo a way way better experience with higher quality ingredients and more thought in the dishes served. The 4th course of rice and a large prawn which was dripping in butter and hard to deshell as a result there was also way to much salt used imo in the cooking, I was awake twice in the night needing a large drink of water due to that. Personally I won't go back they have a lot to learn about quality of courses and giving a real dining experience not just serving you food and asking you to leave. The staff were always polite and catered for any dietary needs which was...

We came last night as a party of 8, and had two tables of 4 for four couples. The atmosphere and wine were okay, unfortunately that is where it ends. We arrived at our scheduled time 8.20pm but were told our tables were not ready yet, ok not the best start but, no problem, we popped into the Warwick Arms Hotel next door, when we came back we had 2 tables nearest the window. The first dish was a selection of Spanish omelette and meats, bread which was ok, however the next 4 dishes were a culinary disaster. Cold soup lentils followed by a cold fish tasteless dish with no seasoning. The main was new potatoes and pork. The pork was extremely tough and over done as if it had been cooked for four hours and left. Dessert was churros which were too hard. All in all for a group of 8 people paying in excess of £400 this was simply not good enough. On mentioning this to the waiter/owner in a nice way at payment time, to try and improve things for the future, he threw the money back at us and told us to take our money back. Suffice to say, we didn’t, as that is not our style and left it on the table, but immediately left. We will not be coming back when we return to Warwick again, and I would advise others to stay away as...