Spain Wine Bar — Restaurant in Ocean City

My boyfriend and I had planned at 2 night, 3 day stay at Cambria in OCMD. Hurricane Erin quickly turn that into 3 nights, 4 days after her coastal flooding made the 3 exits impassable. We quickly scrambled to move our vehicle, secure our room for another day, make arrangements with work and then we finally made it to our dinner reservations at Spain Wine Bar. Talk about stressful! Not knowing if the flooding would continue and our car would flood while we slept, I can’t begin to describe the anxiety.

We finally get sat at our table at 8:15pm and after 30 minutes we still had not so much as seen or met our server. No one had stopped to introduce themselves and bring water or anything. After 30 minutes I felt it necessary to bring it to someone’s attention.

The hostess who I had spoken to apologized. Then I believe it was a manager of sorts, who came over to our table immediately and apologized extensively. Explaining that this is not how they operate nor how they treat their guest. This was not the impression that he wanted us to have after dining at Spain Wine Bar.

He took our drink order and comped our drinks - so incredibly classy & gracious. He didn’t tell us what had happened with our original server, but he did tell us that he would be trusting us to another server and we would be taken care of. Being “taken care of” was the understatement of the century!

Within the minute of the manager speaking with us, a young, handsome, charming young man with a beautiful Romanian accent came over and warmly introduced himself. “Hello, my name is Paul and it is my understanding that you have been here for a while. That your server did not come to take care of you. I am not that server. I just found out about you. But I will be happy to take care of you” he said in a way that conveyed sincerity, apology, and made light of the situation. After we both gave a little laugh, Paul said “I can see that you are not angry about waiting and I am thankful for that!” Again, his lighthearted humor landing and he let out a sigh of relief & we gave a little laugh.

Paul went over the menu, in detail and care, explaining everything about the menu, from the how and the why. The purpose behind aperitifs and tapas. He was thorough and skillful. We placed our order and Paul checked in on us several times, just the perfect amount of presence.

Our cocktails were delicious, perfectly blended and balanced (as a great cocktail should be.) I had the Mar Azul & he had the Suns & Roses. We each had an aperitif (delicious!) I ordered the street corn and roasted beet salad. My boyfriend ordered the mediterranean roasted chicken, watermelon salad and we shared a charcuterie board.

The only way I can describe the food that we ate? Perfection. Beautiful colors and flavors meticulously crafted and paired to perfection. I wouldn’t change a single thing. The food is every bit worth the high rating Spain Wine Bar holds. However, if I’m being completely honest, the ambience, decor, cocktails and food pale in comparison to Paul.

After the mishap with our first server, and seeing how serious the manager was about rectifying the situation we knew he was going to leave us in the hands of his best server… and he did.

Paul is truly exceptional! He absolutely landed in the hospitality industry without coincidence. His personality, attention to detail, level of care, well delivered humor, even the way he explained the menu — he made us feel like we were the most important part of his day.

And let the truth absolutely be told. At the end of our Thursday night we weren’t talking about missing work, extending our vacation, coastal floods, hurricane Erin, the possibility of our car flooding or the exquisite food we ate. No, we talked (many times) about how incredibly special and unique Paul is. He’s a young man starting out and the future in store for him is...

I have mixed feelings about eating at places that are rated #1 in any given location, as Spain Wine Bar currently is as of December 2023. The reason for my reluctance stems from the fact that occasionally those high rankings go to the heads of the people who work there, and they act either as if they do not care or, in the alternative, end up following a script that’s passed on to them so religiously that the personalized experience of dining out loses some of its charm for me. And here while our server, Laura, did seem to care, nonetheless given the large volume of patrons being served at the restaurant with clock-like precision, a small part of me felt like being cogs in a wheel.

Nonetheless, in spite of any mixed feelings I may have about eating at a place that’s wildly popular, when it comes to the quality of the food, I have to confess that Spain Wine Bar’s reputation is well deserved. Their tapas selection is among the most extensive I have come across in a really long while and it would be very hard to come by such a wide range of tapas at restaurants outside of Spain. For my wife who loves tapas (that is, loves with a capital L), Spain Wine Bar was a dream come true. From the tapas, we ordered the crab stuffed peppers, the calamari, and the lamb chops. I personally am a fan of eating a single entrée with larger portions (as opposed to tapas) and so reflecting those preferences, we also went with an order of the seafood paella. My wife raved about the lamb chops and my daughter, who adores calamari, liked her dish as well. Unlike a restaurant we tried out the very next day where the calamari were a bit too oily, that wasn’t the case here. For me the paella was nice, but it lacked kick. I ended up requesting some tabasco and with that, I found the dish to be to my liking. Although the paella we ordered was the smallest size of the three options (and priced at $39), it was a very large portion. Even though I stuffed myself full, I had at least about a third of the dish left over that we ended up bringing back to our hotel. While we were very full, having been impressed by the quality of the food, we decided to try out one of the desserts and based on our server Laura’s recommendation, went with the olive oil cake. The cake reminded me significantly of some cakes that my mother would bake – always a nice touch – and my daughter, who can be a picky eater, enjoyed it so much so that even after we had finished it, she wondered if there was any more of the cake left!

Our bill, that included the above food items, along with a glass of wine for both of us, came to $155 with tax and tips. That was the most we spent of all our meals during our three-day trip to Ocean City, and with only three people in our party, including a 4-year old (who, to be clear, did not order drinks!), the bill came to more than $50 a person. Thus, Spain Wine Bar is not cheap by any stretch of the imagination and frankly, given a choice, I would rather try out other restaurants that are similarly highly rated and specialize in Maryland specialties like crab cake to a greater extent than Spain Wine Bar does. However, from the perspective of my wife, this was easily her best meal in Ocean City, and I knew that if we had stayed here for one more day when the restaurant was open, she would have undoubtedly dragged me here and tried out more of the tapas items that she did not get to try on our first visit. In the end, I think the restaurant, while pricey, deserves a try if you are in Ocean City and should you be the kind of person who fancies high-end dining and/or likes tapas, you will easily have one of your...

The best views, atmosphere, and food in Ocean City! Last night we had our second dinner at Spain Wine Bar and let me tell you it was as good if not better than the first time we dined. (This is hard to do being our first experience was amazing). Both meals we had a wonderful server by the name of Deanna(I think this is correct) she was awesome and will ask for her in the future. My wife and I love to try a variety of things so the tapas menu is right up our alley. Between the two meals we’ve probably tried about 13-14 items and let me tell you I don’t think there’s one we wouldn’t order again. Last night we started with the Heirloom tomato salad with cucumber, goat cheese, and vinaigrette. I typically don’t like big chunks of uncooked tomato (it’s a texture thing), but it was so delicious I was eating fork fulls of the delicious tomatoes. Next we had the grilled asparagus and heirloom carrots with red pepper aioli and crumbled almond and let me tell you these carrots are a MUST, so much so that we ordered a second round later in the meal. Both veggies were super fresh and cooked perfectly. The calamari came next and has a super light and crispy breading. The fresh tender calamari pairs perfectly with the chipotle aioli. The Salmon Skewers with tzatziki sauce was my wife’s favorite from our first meal so we had to get this one again and it was equally as good. Next up we’re the braised short ribs and the scallop risotto. The short rib was tender and moist and on a bed of celery root purée which my wife would have sworn was mashed potato’s if it didn’t say otherwise on the menu. The risotto was creamy and plentiful with delicious mushrooms and topped with delicious fresh scallops.the risotto was made with more of a yellow rice (probably similar to what they use in the paella ) but was full of flavor. If you aren’t thinking we already had enough we didn’t stop there. By my error we ordered the short rib when we meant to order the pork belly so we said what the hell and ordered it and another order of delicious carrots. Let me tell you I am so glad we did. The pork belly might have been the star of the show last night. Beautifully cooked with the perfect about of crisp on the outside the fat was like butter and melted under your knife. As if we weren’t ready to roll ourselves to the elevator we couldn’t leave without a slice of the burnt cheesecake which I can confidently say having had it twice now is my favorite cheesecake I’ve ever had. If the food wasn’t amazing enough the service, views, and overall vibe of this place takes you to another place. Nothing like it in Ocean City and is easily our new go to date night location. Already excited to come back with friends and family time and time again! Don’t miss out this is the place to be! Sorry there aren’t more pictures, we hadn’t eaten all day if you couldn’t tell by our ordering. We are lucky the plates hit the table...