Socarrat Paella Bar - Chelsea — Restaurant in New York

I love Spanish food, especially Tapas and Paella. While my mother was visiting us, she wanted to get some good paella. Who can blame her? There has been this Paella Bar that I have been wanting to go to, so we decided to go during the week day lunch, when it should be rather slow.

The inside was very narrow and long, and have window at the front entrance and all the way back. The rest was lit with rather dimmed lights, creating cozy, romantic, and somewhat warm atmosphere. I liked how the interior had that rustic, antique look to it with red brick wall and dark furniture.

We heard that the paella is not that huge in portion, so we decided to order a sandwich in addition to paella. We chose Steak Sandwich. The sandwich was bigger than we expected. The steak was cooked really well, soft, juicy, and packed with flavor. I didn’t have too much of expectation for the sandwich, but it turned out pretty great.

Now, the paella. They have eight kinds of paella to choose from. Yes, I said it right, EIGHT!!!! No wonder they call themselves the “Paella Bar” with that many selection. We went with Pescados y Mariscos, which comes with shrimp, scallops, squid, mussels, cockles, white fish, and English peas. It was brought to our table in a piping hot pan, which was awesome. They were right about the amount, it was smaller portion than I thought it would be. They do not do mountain of paella, but they do quality paella.

When we were getting to the bottom of the pan, the waitress came back (as promised she would), and scraped off all the crispy rice on the bottom for us. We always loved the little burned rice on the bottom, so we were excited… And it was so delicious!!! We were very happy with our food, it was really tasty and and the staffs were all friendly. I would definitely go back again for more paella! Read my full review of the restaurant and food on my food blog,...

We came here with a group of 11 on a Friday night. We had a reservation and was seated immediately. We ordered the prix fixed dinner which came with 5 apps, 3 paellas and dessert.

For the apps, we ordered the: Gammas al ajillo: I really enjoyed the oil that the shrimp was covered in. It was tasty to dip with the bread. It did have a spicy kick to it so caution if you can't handle the spice. Patatas bravas: Fried potatoes- nothing so special about it. Pulp a la gallega: This may have been one of my favorite apps. If you like octopus, you'll love this! Atun: tuna :) and the croquettes del dia: croquette of the day- when we went there was cheese and potato. This was good but I think its better to save your stomach for the other yummy apps.

The paellas: Squid Ink: I loved it! it was my favorite. it was crunchy rice in the bottom and the rice was covered in squid ink and its something different about it that made me keep reaching for this. Socarrat: There was a mix of seafood and meat but it wasn't my favorite. Carne: Lots of meat and paella. If you're a meat lover, you'd probably enjoy this.

Dessert: We had the churro sundae. The churro was hard and you can dip them in coffee cream but I didn't enjoy this too much. I'm not really a big fan of churros but if you like hard churros with...

Eight of us were treated to a multi-course tapas and paella dinner which was at the highest of Spanish restaurant experiences in Manhattan. Socarrat’s Chelsea restaurant is a charming and warm scene with attentive and knowledgeable service. We put ourselves in the owner, Lolo Manso’s, discerning hands to choose the tapas courses and the wine. It was absolutely the right decision. The Spanish Negroni (with cream sherry instead of vermouth) is a wonderful cocktail to start the evening and we moved on to their red sangria (also the best we have tasted in NY). Our tapas began with jamon Iberico, pan con tomato and croquetas; we moved on to calamari a la plancha and tostados de anchovina. We couldn’t tell you which dish was better. The quality ingredients and care in preparing and presenting spoke to the chef’s and Lolo’s passion and experience. Our tapas was followed by two paellas, one seafood and the other, carne. Both beautifully presented and just the right texture and balance of ingredients. We didn’t have much room for the selection of deserts and sparkling desert wine that followed, but we punished ourselves by finishing everything. Looking around the full restaurant, we could see that all the diners were having fun and engrossed in their own tapas and paella experiences. Looking forward to going...