Sketches of Spain — Restaurant in Dallas

Husband and I came here for Valentine's Day, which ended up being an unfortunate decision as the service ruined our experience almost completely. I don't often leave poor reviews, especially when the food's good, but for a restaurant so highly rated (and priced), we expected a reasonably nice time.

It was a full house, and it was clear that the staff couldn't manage this. The waiters were obviously stressed and disorganized, commonly serving someone else's food to the wrong table. The mood among them seemed both distant and panicky. Combine their chaos with the guests/tables sitting extremely close together, and we had a tense and claustrophobic atmosphere. We wanted to order one dish at a time so that we could pace ourselves and gauge the portions as they came, but the waiter insisted we order everything up front, because the chef was backlogged. We felt rushed to make our decision because of this. At one point we even chatted with the couple next to us about how unrelaxed it was here.

The staff got our drinks incorrect, bringing out only 1 wine serving when we ordered 2, then somehow charged us for 3. Because they had us place our full order upfront, I had asked for dessert to be brought out at the end. Instead, the dessert came right after the appetizer and before the main course, and the server darted off before we could even point out the mistake.

It was impossible to flag anyone down for help, in fact. I doubt they would have even noticed if we'd gotten up and left. As mentioned, it took an extremely long time for anything to happen. I can understand a good dish needing time to prepare, but we waited around 40 minutes to get out of there after we finished eating, and we spent at least 2 hours there total. The bill took forever to arrive, and then even longer for them to correct the overcharges. They couldn't check us out in a timely manner after that, even. We were treated like afterthoughts and received no apology for the slowness or mistakes.

The only reason I'm giving it more than 1 star is because the food was genuinely great (we had the lacon, meatballs, and callos - all flavorful and well made). And we would have ordered more if we were allowed to place our orders one by one, rather than all at once. Perhaps this place would be better to visit on a weekday, but I'm disinclined to return after the service soured our Valentine's. We were so frustrated/tired afterward from the constant waiting and tenseness of the atmosphere that we just turned in for the night. It's a shame because the food is excellent. But avoid like the plague...

I was excited to try this restaurant after seeing so many great reviews. I don’t know what was going on last night, but my experience was horrible. We showed up for our 8pm reservation, and my friend and I believe our table was given away and we weren’t seated until after 8:20pm, probably closer to 8:30pm if I had to guess. We went to the bar to order drinks and it took over 10 minutes for someone to take our order. The bar wasn’t even full. We were convinced our table was given away because they said when we arrived it would only be a few minutes and then we saw someone else get seated. We then had to wait for a booth in the bar area. When we finally got seated, someone came over to take our order quickly, but they’d only just given us the QR code for the menu which WE had to request. The whole night it felt like they were operating like a ship without a captain. I asked what kind of cheese they gave on the appetizer plate, and I was only told “de oveja”. How do you not know what exact type of cheese you’re serving on your menu? The octopus wasn’t cooked very well, and the secreto was so underwhelming. It’s supposed to be one of the most luxurious cuts of meat. We didn’t even know who our waiter was the entire evening. A group of people took care of us throughout the night but not a single one introduced themselves or really checked to see how we were doing. I honestly felt uncomfortable with the poor quality of the service. The bartender at one point tried to take my friend’s glass of wine away when it still had wine in it. I would have liked to speak to a manager, but it certainly didn’t seem like there were any manager types around to discuss the experience with. They brought the check without the drinks from the bar and then tried to add them and I had to tell them we were really late getting seated for them to even consider removing them from the check, when frankly based on what we experienced, we shouldn’t have had to deal with in the first place. Avoid this place at all costs. I’d rather fly to Madrid, which I’ll gladly do anytime, before returning...

Giving 4 stars for the system, but the service gets a 3.

I wish the wait staff had asked us if this was our first time dining with them. It was our first time, and we felt rushed by the staff to figure out what we wanted or how we should order, with no information offered to us. This is common practice at other establishments in Dallas with similar price points that offer a unique and elevated dining experience.

Since the menu was all digital, they could add more helpful information about all food dishes and wines. The photographs were helpful, but the meatball picture is inaccurate, as it came out with a dark brown sauce instead of a light-colored sauce in the photo on the menu.

We had to point to the kitchen counter display at the bar seating and ask about something we saw that wasn't on the menu—another shortfall in the service we received.

If you have things available that aren't listed on your menu, it should be the server's responsibility to tell us about them. Had we not been seated in that part of the restaurant, we would have never known that dish was even available.

The menu gave very brief descriptions of the menu items, and it would have been helpful (and more welcoming) to have some guidance from the server. The wine list provided names of wines but no descriptions of the wines; this would have been helpful. Instead, I had to google to see...