The staff certainly knows how to welcome its guests: we were kindly welcomed and immediately sat on a Saturday afternoon, and as soon as we got settled they were already taking our drink orders. Not too long after that, we were getting toast with cream cheese, bread, and gazpacho with biscuit sticks. It was a generous array of starters, all very good (especially the bread and the nice gazpacho) and on our table very quickly. We asked for chorizos as appetizers; they were promptly served with chimichurri and sauteed peppers and onions; obviously, my preference is for the chimichurri. Awesome so far! Good chorizo, good starchy starters, and attentive service. Time for the main course: beef ribs, the lemon chicken, and the De Maria chicken. None of them included sides, so we ordered some fries to go with it all.
Main course arrives, and with it things start to go a bit downhill. The lemon chicken was noticeably undercooked, and even after we asked that they put some more heat on it, it still had some red in it. The De Maria chicken was certainly better cooked -- too much so, as a large percentage of it was burnt. The parts that were not happened to have a lot of fat, which is not great when it comes to chicken. The sauce (made with mushrooms) was a little one-dimensional, but mushrooms are always, at worst, decent.
The fries looked great (yellow and translucent, as if thoroughly crunchy and oily), but they were neither crunchy on the outside nor cottony on the inside; if they were freshly made, they did not taste like it.
A more redeeming final act was a round of digestifs: tasty, refreshing pineapple sorbet shots.
The service, as I said, was generally courteous and quick to attend to our needs (except a few drink refills); that, along with the generous and delicious appetizers and digestifs, make up for the underwhelming chicken and the disappointing fries. Maybe their strengths lie elsewhere -- and I think if you score a good main course, you'll be more than happy with the rest of the experience. read more
