Barcelona Wine Bar — Restaurant in Boston

Barcelona Wine Bar has made food fun again and might deserve a casual Michelin star. (if you're debating on wether or not to try Barcelona - stop - because you're wasting time by not coming here.)

My girlfriend and I headed out to Barcelona for the first time for my birthday. While we heard that Barcelona was good, we didn't expect to be blown away by the incredible food and service.

Here's what we got: Chorizo Blanco, Valdeón, Drunken Goat, Wagyu Cecina, Patatas Bravas, Albondigas, and the Skirt Steak. For our drinks we stuck with water and got a mocktail to share: Tea Time.

This is what we loved: We were seated quickly by one of the managers (shout out Mason Locker!) and had a wonderful conversation with them about what to get. Once the food came (and it came quickly), we were instantly in love. The Chorizo Blanco was a delicious tradition charcuterie; then we took it a step further with the addition of the Valdeón (blue cheese) and the Drunken Goat (goat cheese). These items were a wonderful way to start the meal. As we began munching on the rest of the items, another manager came up to us (shout out Luisa - I hope that was right name!) and we were able to have another wonderful conversation in the midst of our meal. As for the other items, we particularly loved the Wagyu Cecina. In the future, I'll be ordering this with the brie. I'm not a big steak fan but it was nice and tender and the sour lime + corn was a great addition to it. The meatballs were good in-themselves but the sauce took it above and beyond. Dipping the bread in the sauce was delicious as well. The staff was super great and made a nice birthday board for my GF and I to share (Olive Oil Cake). As the check came by we also found out that they had comped our charcuterie and cheeses!

What could have been better (IMO): Would have loved to see more non-alcoholic (not mocktails) drink options. Not necessarily sodas, but something extra from the Spanish cuisine. Nonetheless, I can't complain when the food was that good. It took us a while to get the check and bread. We only got our bread towards the end of our meal, which while not necessary, definitely elevated the dishes when combined. The check also took around 40 minutes from the end of our meal. I understand this a little because there were many birthday's going but 40 minutes is a pretty lengthy amount of time.

Concluding thoughts: Barcelona Wine Bar is a must try at the bare minimum. It combines tapas-style dining with delicious dining and a fun, welcoming atmosphere. Personally, I'm hooked; I'll be coming back until I try every item on that menu. Places like these deserve Michelin stars, not the crazy fancy, fine-dining uptight atmospheres that many people are familiar with, but instead places like Barcelona where down-to-earth...

Made a reservation for myself and 3 girlfriends for 8:15pm. We waited over 50 minutes to be seated!!! We had to stand in the hold doorway because it was so packed. People that had reservations at 7:45 but arrived at 8:30 were being seated before us despite them being late!!! After 50 minutes I said to the very elderly hostess that I literally cannot stand waiting anymore and that we will be canceling our reservation and then suddenly a table opened up for us. We were seated in line with the door. So every time the door opened (which was literally every 5 minutes), we were exposed to the coldest every gush of air. The waitress was very inexperienced and being a regular it seemed I knew the menu better then her. After we ordered, a manager came past apologizing for the wait and mentioning that a few of the tapas dishes we ordered would be on the house. We thanked her. We suffered through our dinner. The resturant was so noisy we literally could not hear each other speaking. We met up to catch up but couldn’t hear anything the other was saying. The dishes were less good than usual. The octopus was dry and the mushrooms were so salty it was unedible. The manager came past and asked if we were okay and when we mentioned the dishes we were unhappy with she said sorry about that and that was it. I asked my waitress for utensils because I didn’t have any and water and waited most of the night for the water. When the bill arrived, I noticed that not one tapas was taken off the bill as promised by the manager. I was so desperate to get out that I didn’t even bother to complain. The next day I called to mention what had happened the night before. The same very elderly lady answered and said she remembered our group and that she is sure that the manager never forgets anything. That she would be so terribly sad for this to happen and that she would contact us. She took the check number, my email, name and phone number. It’s been 2 weeks and needless to say never heard from anyone. I would never make a Google review had this been taken care of properly, I think they had enough chances to fix the situation. If you read the bad reviews it seems this complaint...

We’ve been trying to eat at Barcelona for a while but there was always a long waiting list for walk ins. When we finally managed to make a reservation, it was pointless because we had to wait 1.5 hours after our reservation time to sit down at a table. The bookings are poorly managed with 4 people at the entrance arranging seating and giving poorly estimates about waiting time. We were told the waiting time would be 20 mins top and every 20 mins, we would be told the same. If we had known that we needed to wait that long we would have gone to a different place.

Once we sat down at the table, we ordered food and a bottle of wine. They served us the food first and the wine bottle came when we were almost done with the food and we were deliberately eating slow to wait for the wine. We had to follow up with the waiters twice to get the wine served.

Some of the food was good but not all of it. We ordered the heirloom tomatoes, which were just regular tomatoes and they served it with jamon, which wasn’t listed on the menu. We don’t eat meat so we didn’t really feel comfortable eating that. The cheese board comes with cheese alone, not even with crackers or any other nibbles, which makes it very dry to eat.

The music is unbeareably loud, you can’t even hear the person sitting next or infront of you. I wouldn’t recommend going at night unless you go to the bar and look for a night club style atmosphere. There was waiters standing at the bar poruring shots directly from a bottle into people’s mouths like they were in some sort of college party.

Overall, I was very surprised that they didn’t offer us a free drink at the bar or they didn’t knock off part of the check. I’ve worked in a restaurant before and that is the bare minimum I would do in such situation. This is the worst food experience I’ve had in Boston and this is not a city that stands out for its food scene. The people serving and attending you are clearly nice but it just seems to be poorly...