Barcelona Wine Bar — Restaurant in Nashville-Davidson

Came on a Tuesday night with a friend. I’ve never been in a more crowded restaurant on a Tuesday. I would hate to see it on a weekend. It was so loud I was losing my voice by the end of the meal and there wasn’t even any music or anything. Just the ambient sound of people talking was deafening. They have tables crammed in like sardines and considering you’re sharing a bunch of plates, the tables are not large enough to be comfortable.

Service was mediocre largely due to how busy it is. They don’t have time to fill drinks, so they just leave a water carafe on the table, which there isn’t room for bc small table and too many plates. We were sat by a manager who explained a few of her favorite dishes, one of them being the gambas, and she added they bring bread that you can dip in the oil. The server who took our order also said she was going to bring bread. When we were nearly finished we asked about the bread because we had a dish of oil just sitting there, and she apologized and said she’d bring bread, then brought us cake and never brought bread. She comped the cake because it was my birthday and probably to make up for the fact that we were told three times they were bringing bread and never got any. The menu is confusing if you’ve never been there before. Without asking what each thing is, there’s no way to know what exactly you’re ordering. We ordered 4 tapas at first and they all came out sporadically instead of all at once. We added a 5th tapa a little later. Overall, nothing was bad, but everything was fairly underwhelming. The croquettes were the favorite of what we ordered. The garlic aioli was bland. Could have used more garlic. Would not recommend the potato tortilla. The manager oversold that one. She said it had a creamy egg filling. No, it was like cold au gratin potatoes with no cheese. Not good. The calamari was fine, but not the best. A lot of little fried pieces of nothing mixed in with a few good pieces of calamari. Like nearly everything we tried, it lacked flavor, but the dipping sauce was good. The patatas were better for a potato than the potato tortillas. But they’re still just fried potatoes on a homemade ketchup (which they call salsa) topped with the “garlic” aioli, so despite being good, it wasn’t something overly creative. The gambas we ordered on the recommendation of the manager not realizing it was shrimp. I don’t usually eat shrimp, but I tried it. Surprisingly not fishy or particularly rubbery like every other shrimp I’ve tried, but also not really tasting like anything, and then we had dish of oil and nothing to do with it since, no bread. If you really like shrimp, it’s not bad. You only get 5 shrimp, though, so not a great value when you don’t get to soak up the oil with anything. We had the sangria, which was sangria . The olive oil cake…I’ve had some amazing olive oil cake in my life and this was just not it. First, it was unevenly hot like they microwaved it. The salted top was just too much salt in certain bites making the top practically inedible. I’m guessing they drizzled it with a glaze that unevenly soaked in because it looked like a few places were very wet that absorbed more of the glaze than other dry places. The sauce they drizzled nearby was some sort of coffee flavored icing that just didn’t go well with the oily salty cake and was, by itself, not good. I’m glad she didn’t charge us for the cake because I would have sent it back if I had paid for it. Overall, the experience was meh. Not bad, but I wouldn’t go again, and I think there are better food and better dining experiences to be had...

!! DO NOT GO IF YOU ARE ASIAN - RACIST AND UNPROFESSIONAL STAFF !!

Last night I took three of my friends visiting from out of town to dinner at Barcelona Wine Bar Nashville. I was very excited to bring them to such a lively, popular restaurant in the neighborhood.

The white sangria was delicious, tapas were flavorful, but the seafood paella was extremely bland and disappointing. Unfortunately the wait staff was also quite forgetful and unprofessional. People rarely checked in on us or gave updates on our food, and our group definitely felt ignored as we had to flag down staff multiple times to receive any type of help. One of our dishes did not come out for a while, and when we had finally gotten in touch with our server near the end of our meal it turned out that they had run out of the dish and simply “forgot” to even mention it to us throughout the entire night. I had a very similar experience the last time I visited the restaurant, so I was ultimately disappointed to note a consistent lack of service.

As we were leaving the restaurant, a man in an apron who clearly worked as a part of the restaurant, yelled “NI HAO MA” after my friends and I. We are all young females with East-Asian features who had spoken English during our entire meal and done absolutely nothing to initiate conversation with staff as we were quite literally exiting the restaurant. I was absolutely SHOCKED and HUMILIATED to hear my friends recount the situation. I have NEVER had such a blatant act of racism from PROFESSIONAL STAFF of a restaurant. I even attempted to call the restaurant on our drive back home to resolve this situation but nobody picked up, so I resorted to writing a review.

There was absolutely no excuse for the way my friends and I were treated last night. Being harassed and “outed” as the only East-Asian customers in the entire restaurant was an incredibly humiliating experience. How can a professional establishment whose entire brand is cultural diversity and local community treat their customers this way? This was not a matter of social or cultural ignorance, but a very intentional act of mocking and racism.

I will not be returning to Barcelona Wine Bar and highly encourage others...

Great date night spot, outdoor seating is great on cooler days, food is fantastic and service doesn’t suck!

It’s a solid 4/5 place, and most of the tapas get 5/5 from me — do not leave without trying Patatas Bravas. We ordered 8 tapas and all of them were fantastic, except the shrimp one — that was our least favorite but still not bad — it was just average and everything else was outstanding.

They served bread fresh out of the oven, still warm when it made it to the table alongside some top quality olive oil to dip it in.

If you like Sangria, do not be afraid to order the whole pitcher, it was one of the best red sangria in the city. The only complaint is that the pitcher comes with a ton of ice and you can’t drink it faster that the rate at which ice is melting in the pitcher — so your last few glasses will be watered down. I’ve seen other places serve the wine glass with fruits and ice and serve the pitcher with sangria no ice and that worked so much better to ensure your sangria tastes consistent throughout. Also, be careful of the outdoor insects when sitting on their outdoor patio during summer. You’ll be constantly trying to save your food from being shared with the insects.

Carry your sunglasses during summer because even for 7pm reservation, it was sunny.

Chicken thighs were great. Eggplant tapas were great for summertime outdoor patio — it was fresh and served cold.

The tables are arranged very close to each other both indoors and outdoors, so be prepared to occasionally interact with your neighboring tables 😂

There’s complimentary valet parking if you’re looking to drive there. There’s also street parking that can be easily found in this area within a block in all directions.

Overall, I left the place content and with a smile on my place. I’ll definitely be going there again and will introduce it to my friends as a must-visit place...