Barcelona Wine Bar — Restaurant in Denver

Barcelona Wine Bar in Denver

I’m from Miami originally. My first taste of Paella was in 1972, when some Cuban co-workers suggested that we all go out to lunch and get some. The place we worked was in Hialeah – near “Little Havana”. So we all went to the place they suggested, and I got this big plate, piled deep with delicious saffron rice, with tons of assorted sea food in it ( shrimp, clams, mussels, crab, fish...), and a small pitcher of Sangria. All for about $5. I was making about $4.50 an hour at the time. Ah, inflation. How the government robs us.

But those were the days, and it was all we could do, to go back to work after that. But it was one of the best dishes I’ve ever had in my life. I even learned how to make a rough facsimile at home later, from a Cuban woman friend of mine.

So since moving to the Denver area in the late ‘70’s, I’ve been trying to find a great Paella for my birthday, every year, if possible. We’ve tried about 7 restaurants, with very mixed results, but none quite made the grade of that one in Little Havana – not even one that claimed to have moved here, from there. ( They lasted a couple of years here, then went out of business. )

We arrived at Barcelona Wine Bar at around 5:40 PM, and it turned out to be a few blocks from the baseball stadium, in a neighborhood where people party, drink, and...well you get the gist of it. The place was a giant street party outside the restaurant, with almost no place to park.

But this Birthday, we definitely found THE worst Paella, so far. That’s not a title that a restaurant should want.

I started out asking the waitress if it had saffron in it, and she replied “yes”. So we ordered a full sized dinner of it.

We started off with some bread, which we were to find out, would be the best part of this meal, and Tapas Calamari, which was “ehhhh…”, and small. ( We know an Italian restaurant that gives a big plate of great fried Calamari, for the same price! )

That took the edge off, while we waited almost an hour for the Paella. During that time, they turned the lights down, from low, to almost fully dark. The only reason I was able to get a photo of the Paella, before we dug in, was because my cell phone ( Galaxy S9+ ) has a very sensitive camera, because we could barely see our hands in front of our faces. We asked the waitress if they could turn the lights back up, so we could SEE WHAT WE WERE EATING, and she apologized and said “no”, but she would find us a candle. But that didn’t help. We needed 200 candle power – not 1. It was actually a hundred times as bright OUTSIDE, when we went out the door at 7:40 PM!

We’ve always been wary of restaurants that kept the lights so low that we couldn’t see the food, and you can imagine why. ( Do they NOT want us seeing it? ) Plus, that comes across to us like a “dive bar”. We literally had to turn on my phone’s flashlight, so we could see, to spoon it out of the big dish! This dish was “dinner for 2” and was around $50.

So this “Paella” was mostly rice. We didn’t taste saffron, but SALT, SALT, and more SALT. Maybe 3 days of salt in each of our dinners?! Some vague Spanish flavor under the SALT, but we didn’t taste saffron.

We couldn’t see for sure, but got the impression that some of the mussel and clam shells may have been empty. We each got one large prawn, in-shell. ( no shrimp, no fish, no crab )

The one bright spot in this whole experience was the manager Ricky, who was very nice and talked with us a little before we ate. He came back later and asked how it was, and to be honest, I couldn’t tell him anything, but that we were disappointed with the Paella and the darkness, and that the bread was the best thing about the meal. He apologized, and I felt bad about even having to tell him this – he was such a nice guy.

As for the service, we had two waitresses, but still felt like we were an after thought.

Oh well. I still had a nice Birthday, despite this meal, and we went to DQ afterwards, for mini-Blizzards, as we’d had enough of Barcelona Wine Bar. Better...

Honestly I was my first time there before COVID and even business was pretty slow most of the time, services and food was increíble, but now let me explain my experiences the place was pretty busy for a Sunday night around 8:00 pm the hostess super rude and without being a hater she look like she was on something, she constantly was moving her mouth and looking to the roof and smiling to not idea who at the roof and she was pretty much laying on her desk and just out of world ( maybe she just hate her job who knows ) the bartender even she was kind of polite, every time we address any trouble she clear said “I know “ and turn her back, she has a calm actitud but her answer always pretty much was don’t care food kind of expensive for the size and presentations (I will leave the tickets) if you are expecting the bread you must be prepared for solid 40 minutos and asking the bartender, server, assistant manager and all of them will tell you I know it’s coming, when it arrives was cold, hard and the butter was solid as a rock for a place claiming they are top of the top they must know butter must not be served on that temperatures, and olive oils was just place and they supouse to add pepper but to busy to do it ( I am attaching picture as well) the burrata was a little more than $12 for a half portion plus pretty much was two bites not flavors and not even bread or anything ( I attached picture as well ) the tortilla española, it’s cold as hell and we told our server that was as well bartender she claim “ you should asked warm and we do it, other wise we have pre-made and it’s cold” well here we go like I said she took all the wrong things like “we have Busines who cares , as longer we make money we don’t care “ Drinks are good “Sangria” we try the red and the white but look more like a lemonade kind of don’t have the feeling of actually sangria pretty plane and just sweet Queso plancha was around $11,50 dollar and take more than 35 minutes for an appetizer and when we asked to the server/ bartender she said one more time “ I know, will come up eventually” when the queso actually came up was a little piece of queso way too much honey but for $11 dollars at least put something around right ? (Picture attached ) but we need to be honest and maybe I spell wrong the name Daniel the food Runner extremely friendly profesional, so focus on his job and so fast, he was the one actually brought the bread and talk for a little bit and was just perfect on his job the second good things was Lucas maybe I get wrong his name but outstanding profesional (food runner as well) so good on his job and explaining every single things and very friendly the paella salvaje for $56 dollars pretty expensive and too much salty and way to much burned, I guess they will called “it’s like that in Europe “ but noup I being there (in Europe ) and they don’t taste like this! The environment was good as usual, kind of clean based on how much traffic they have And before any one asked “ if it’s so bad, why you keep going ?” Well I gave them another chance but they keep going down on food quality and services But being honest they do have a lot of business and at the end of the day and until more competition come around them they will just making money and don’t care for those details ! Normally if a restaurant it’s making money they just don’t focus in the...

My girlfriend absolutely delights in wine bars, and so for her birthday I sought out to find the best wine bar in denver. After hours of research and reading reviews I had settled on the Barcelona Wine bar, for it appeared to promise a perfect balance of exquisite food and fine dining experience.

We made reservation for two and showed up 15 minutes late, but that was no issue for them and they greeted us with warm smiles and showed us to our table. We were seated at the communal table, with the expectation that other guests would sit alongside us. But, seeing that my girlfriend and I couldn’t keep our hands off each other, the restaurant staff saw to it that we would have our own communal table, while the other tables filled up with less passionate couples.

Then our waitress promptly greeted us and filled our tall glasses with ice cold water. My girlfriend and I were immediately impressed by her sweet and friendly character. So much in fact that my girlfriend felt compelled to get her name, which we learned was Isabel.

Aside from being a great and friendly waitress, Isabel displayed a depth of wine knowledge which proved indispensable for my girlfriend and I, as both of us are complete novices in the wine world (although my girlfriend is rapidly becoming a wine connoisseur in her own right). Isabelle described a Chardonnay that was said to be oaky and creamy, reminiscent of the very nectar of the gods — so we simply had to choose it. And boy were we happy we did. We not only found delight, but also the secrets of Earth were revealed to us at the bottom of the bottle.

We ordered charcuterie, cheese and a chicken. All were fantastic. The chicken especially outshone the rest. It was seasoned to such perfection, cooked in a way that made the outside crunchy but the meat inside still juicy. Goodness! I am salivating as I write this review. And here’s the best part of the whole experience: the chicken entree was on the house (!!)

Isabel had mentioned the chicken might take a long time (30-40 minutes) which was OK for us, but admittedly we were on a time crunch to make the next birthday activity I had planned on the itinerary. It is likely Isabel sensed this, and with her empathetic nature she did whatever she could to speed up the preparation of the chicken. The preparation time probably didn’t exceed the upper bound of 40 minutes, but still, Isabel felt compelled to put the chicken entree on the house.

This kind and empathetic gesture quite nearly lifted our hearts up to heaven. we will certainly be back at the Barcelona wine bar...