Barrio Social — Restaurant in Vail

We live in Vail for a few months each year and have eaten at pretty much every restaurant. We didn’t feel this was a very good value relative to the price. Vs other options nearby. Here’s some Details.

If you sit on the patio, it is essential that you be on the left side. The bus stop is right in front of the right side of the patio. The electric buses are pretty quiet, but the diesel ones are very noisy —really kills the atmosphere.

Bread - Good quality, excellent butter. Four dollars. A deal.

Gazpacho. Pretty tasty. Great deal at $10

Avocado soup. Very nice. Had A reasonable amount of crab sprinkled on top. Around $15 in a good value.

Octopus. Not that great. A little stringy. Cut into small pieces, not served as an entire tentacle. Dry. But most oddly , It came with mashed potatoes and potato slices. Since the octopus was dry, there wasn’t any sort of a liquid element or sauce that would’ve really helped out. Disappointing. Poorly thought out and poor execution.

Watermelon salad. Probably the highlight of the meal - really well seasoned. Had some nice mini Barada cheeses to go with it. Smart design!

Cheese plate. Two of the four cheeses were manchego variants, one with a strong truffle flavor and one with a wine flavor. We didn’t enjoy them. The Pure manchego was excellent. The fourth cheese was OK. Olives were good. Overall, disappointing for the price.

Potatoes - ok but not great; expensive.

Wine - $17 for a small glass of OK wine is just really typical in Vail.

It’s a nice location and the service was OK. We won’t be back. There’s...

We chose this restaurant solely based on finding out they had a squid ink seafood fideua. We’d visited Spain, and had a squid ink paella in the past, so I was really looking forward to this dish. After confirming our reservation with a $40 deposit, we were locked in. It was only after that, that we saw their google rating was relatively low, at a 3.6. My husband, who chooses movies not to watch based on their rotten tomatoes ratings, was skeptical. While I enjoyed the meal, it was his enthusiasm that really impressed me most. (I always enjoy a seafood dinner, and usually he tolerates my requests but prefers something with more flavor overall). We both enjoyed the dinner, and he said the clams were especially surprisingly flavorful, with the sauce and seasonings in the dish. Additionally, the Brussels sprouts were the best either of us have ever had, and we frequently order those as well. (To show I’m not fully biased, the cauliflower was just ok). The seafood for our meal was picked fresh, directly from their seafoood counter inside the restaurant. The homemade sangria was tasty. Our waitress was very honest and friendly. The hostess was less warm, which may have contributed to others’ ratings, but there was minimal interaction there anyway. Overall, the venue is gorgeous, and the food was phenomenal. I’m giving it 5 stars to help get this rating up to where...

We went here for dinner on a friday night during ski season. When we arrived just after 6 the place was a bit quiet but filled right up to a nice atmosphere within the next 30 minutes.

The most notable thing was the service, which was incredibly attentive. Two waitresses and the owner both came to our table to check on us, offer help with the food and drinks menus, and check if we needed anything.

The cocktails were a bit weak, but the wine and sangria were good.

We enjoyed the tapas, in particular the croquetas were delicious. The tomato bread with anchovies was good, standard tapas fare and the scallops were also well cooked.

We also ordered the lamb papardelle and the duck for mains. The paella cubes that came with the duck were unique to me and tasted good. The portions were small, but that's not necessarily bad if you order enough tapas.

The ambience was great - we were sitting by the window with a view out onto the street + mountain with a gas fire for flair.

The price was pretty steep, but...