Rincón 38 — Restaurant in Minneapolis

My family who is originally from Spain is visiting and we decided to give Rincon 38 a try. I made a reservation for 7 and we arrived right on time. Our table was not prepared and the manager tried to squeeze our group into a small table for 6. When we asked about a larger table, or other options, the manager responded rudely and told us that the restaurant is small so we would only get a table for 6. After meeting our waiter (who was pleasant), we found that the entire staff and chef were from Mexico, not Spain. This was disappointing as we were expecting an authentic Spanish meal. The wine list was very disappointing. Spain has great wines, and they had a poor selection. They didn't even have Tio Pepe which is a staple for a Spanish restaurant. We were also disappointed to find that the Tapas menu had been discontinued. We asked our waiter if anything else could be done about our cramped table and the manager returned to our table and shouted at us saying that we should not question how he decided to seat us. We ended up paying for our disappointing bottle of wine and left without eating any food. We did see food on other tables and can tell you that this is not an authentic Spanish restaurant - more like Span-Mex cuisine. A Mexican spin on Spanish food.

I would not recommend this restaurant to anyone based on how we were treated. I guess they are so small that they don't feel like they don't need to appreciate their customers. If this was an authentic Spanish restaurant they would have welcomed us, instead they treated us so badly that we felt like we...

Decent food, cute ambience and great neighborhood.

The place is very small, but not so small to warrant what came next.

My dinner date and I walked in, they asked if we had a reservation”no”, the male host/manager gave off a little attitude. The place was pretty empty, but they sat us at a table so close to another couple, our elbows rubbed theirs literally. We assumed they sat us so close to the other 2 people cause they’re squeezing us in because they were booked with reservations. Not the case, we were there 45 mins before another couple came in and they also didn’t have a reservation. Needless to say, by the time we left more people came, but not enough to fill the restaurant to 50%, to give attitude and sit us so close to another couple.

The server was also unhappy about life. No smile, no great personality, just b*tchy. The manager and servers all stood in a line and just stared at us, almost the entire time. Laughing and carrying on with each other. That’s how not busy they were. Which, why it was irritating we had to keep calling our server over for drink refills, etc. At one point we seen the server and manager roll their eyes at each other as we called our server over again for silverware that was missing. Please keep in mind we were never rude, so the rude service was for no reason. Even the couple next to us as they left said the service was rude to them as well and never coming back.

Soooo, the food and wine were okay, but over priced. I would never recommend this restaurant to anyone. Way too snobby of a restaurant for a restaurant in the...

Rincon 38 is my favorite Minneapolis restaurant. My wife and I are from Iowa, and we eat here every time we come to the cities. The food is always excellent and they change their menu frequently. For example, they always have some tapas standards like pulpo (octopus) or datiles (dates), but the preparation changes. The dates were served on toast pieces and stuffed with goat cheese this time. One of my favorites was a grilled octopus with chorizo and white asparagus.

The service has always been exceptional and they proved it on this trip. I made an OpenTable reservation for 9:00 pm. It turns out that they close at 9:00 pm, so OpenTable sent me an email changing my reservation to 8:30 pm. I never saw the email so my wife and I showed up at 8:55 pm. The restaurant told us about the mixup but they welcomed us and gave us a table, We placed an order for multiple tapas and everything was great! I assumed after our initial order they would shut down the kitchen so I was surprised when our waiter came by and asked if we wished to order more! We also enjoyed Tres Leches cake for dessert. Even though we had arrived right at closing time, they took excellenrt care of us.

I am always surprised at how reasonable the prices are. The only downside is that I miss the pre-Covid days when they were open...