Barcelona Tavern

Went for the first time 2wks ago for lunch with a friend.
Only 2 tables were taken, front girl asked where I wanted to sit…
WOW… when 2 women usually walk in one of these places on 8^th Ave for lunch, they are seated in the worst place possible.
⁵⁄₅ stars for service
Waitress: Very friendly and informative.
⁵⁄₅ stars for the waitress.
Food: Shared the Lobster Ravioli as an appetizer and the short rib dip as a main.
To die for…
⁵⁄₅ stars for food.

Waited at the door with no hostess until we sat ourselves. Waited more for the waitress… finally ordered a margarita, but it came with no crushed ice (at $ 10 it should I think). Ordered the steak, but they don’t sell steaks any more. How can a restaurant in Calgary not sell steak? We waited some more for the waitress again then we paid for the drinks and left to go to the keg, which was awesome. The menu here does not suite to the downtown crowd i think, maybe hipsters but not the business after work. Won’t be back.

Went there for lunch with my wife yesterday (04/​14/​2016 for the restaurants reference «Tbl ⁷⁰⁸⁄₁ chk 431».
We have been here before and it wasn’t bad, It wasn’t outstanding but it was ok. Yesterday however was brutal. We arrived for our 11:30 reservation and were greeted and seated promptly which was nice but that’s where the good stuff ends. We both ordered drinks and the Barca Burger. As we settled in for our lunch the atmosphere in the restaurant turned from a restaurant to a construction zone. There was something going on upstairs with power tools and vacuums that persisted though-​out the lunch hour. Made it hard to hold a conversation because ti was so loud. To be honest, we just wanted to choke down the food and get out of there. It wasn’t pleasant at all.
Now on to the food. I past visits the food has been ok but this time the burger was way over cooked and very dry. It was almost as if it had been cooked previously then flashed on the grill or heated up to be slapped on a bun with some sauces to try and mask the dryness of the meat.
Overall 2 out of 5 and it’s unlikely we’ll be back

Barcelona is OK. The food is OK, the service is OK. If it’s close by and location is a premium consideration go for it. Not worth a special trip.

Decided on the Short Rib Dip with Kale Salad today. Really good dish! The Short Rib sat on top of a bun. The meat was so tender with that melted cheese on a bun. At the bottom of the bun, there was some white and creamy horseradish sauce. On top of the bun, you have a good heaping of thinly sliced deep-​fried onions. Cut a chunk of your SRD and then dip into the au jus. Delicious! The Kale Salad was very fresh; there was pieces of cauliflower, quinoa, thin slice of cucumber, fresh, green kale and a nice creamy salad dressing. My friend had the same sandwich but with matchstick fries; comes with ketchup. She liked her dish, too!
Well put together dish!
The only little problem was the green tea. The water was not hot enough for my tea. The waitress changed it out and it was all good!

A nice place for cocktails and tapas, with a large open space, modern decoration. The various fresh fruit + herb bevvies were inspired (e.g. Sage & Grapefruit, or Basil & Strawberry), and they have red, white, and cava sangrias that are on special in the weekends. The paella was really well made, and the short rib empanadas weren’t skimpy for the price. Touches like a menu item for buying the kitchen a 6-​pack of beers, and an accommodating hostess mean we’ll be back!

The service here deserves zero stars since there really was no service.
I made a reservation for two for Thursday night dinner and drinks. When we got to the restaurant, the hostess said that she didn’t have a reservation under my name. This is after I received a confirmation email and a reminder email asking me to confirm my reservation. We weren’t too annoyed because we were eventually given a table at the back of the restaurant.
The waitress in charge of our section was INCOMPETENT. Even someone who has never worked in the service industry knows that by serving alcohol the bill increases significantly. So the first thing you should ask is if the table would like alcohol… especially on a game night. After about fifteen minutes of watching our waitress take orders from tables with guests who arrived after us, she finally gets to our table to drop off two napkins and leaves without saying a word. We called her back, but she ignored us and kept on walking. Another ten minutes go by and she stops by our table again, but the table behind us calls to her and she leaves our table to serve them. That was it. We got up and left.
Save your money and go elsewhere. There is nothing special about Barcelona except for the horrible service.
I am truly disappointed in this restaurant in the Downtown Core.

In my last review I commented on the service, how it was on the slower side and could use improvement. Unfortunately, service was as inconsistent as my first visit. As friendly as our server was, she left us for 30 minutes before taking our order. However food did come out pretty fast. But then when we were finished eating, our plates never got cleared and stayed there on our table, which was awhile as we stayed and chatted catching up with each other. Server never came back to check on us or ask us if we wanted more drinks after our meal. It wasn’t until we were ready to leave when a few of us had to ask if some of our food could get packed up. So again, lovely venue, tasty food (ordered the calamari, truffle fries, and grilled cheese) but so-​so service. The prices are on the higher side, so being on point with service would make the dining experience all the more worth while.

This is a nice place to get together and enjoy a wide selection of bevvies and tapas. The servers are friendly and attentive, the drink selection very good quality, and the food is maybe not exactly what you’d find in Spain, but a great take on it at least.
I was there during the Champions League final, and it was a packed house since FC Barcelona was in it! A great vibe. I didn’t have a reservation, and was just a singleton from out of town, but they had set aside a room for randoms like us to get together and create our own party. ;-)
The whole tavern worked hard to make sure people had what they wanted during the entire crush. A difficult feat but they seemed to manage well.
There was an extra long wait for my Bombas (potato chorizo croquettes) to come out, so they were gracious enough to supply me with an order of paprika prawns on polenta. Which just so happened to be the next thing I was going to order!
Both the bombas and the prawns were very well made. The croquettes were crispy on the outside, succulent smooth inside, and topped with a very rich tomato sauce and manchego cheese. The prawns themselves were standard tail-​on frozen prawns, but the polenta made the dish delicious, lots of depth of flavour in the grits themselves, and then some great seasoning and lardons overtop

Great location. Spacious & modern.
Professional servers and good service.
Good alcohol selection and interesting menu.
However…
Bad food!
We ordered burgers, pizza, and 2 other items. all were greasy and bad. the pizza was wet and soggy.
They need a kitchen to match the other parts. I will give them a 4 – 5 stars when that happens.

This place will be one of my favorites in Calgary… Excellent ambience, delicious food, great drinks and good service!.. What else you can ask for… The sangria was incredible!.. Probably one of the bests in downtown… The food was just amazing. The octopus was awesome!.. The prawns delicious, the Parmesan potatoes were great!.. The ahi tuna was good was well… Why not 5 stars?. Because if the manchego fondue… That was the only thing that was not good… Even when the service was great and they returned it. I cannot recommend this dish… But everything else was just delicious… I definitely would like to go back to try more things…

This a very interesting, albeit a little bit confused, upscale-​ish pub downtown. Here’s a few things it does really well: drinks (particularly gin-​based), food quality, restaurant layout. On the other hand, here’s what it doesn’t do so well: atmosphere, service, some food prices.
Best bet here is to come on Monday night to take advantage of their pizza specials. We had the mushroom pizza and the veal one. Very high quality with fresh ingredients. These will run your $ 10 each and are a sizable portion. Sangria is on special that night as well for $ 17 a pitcher and is of very high quality and comes in three varieties. The tomatoes Barcelona was delicious as well.
Things to avoid are the lobster ravioli ($ 12 for two pieces… not exactly a share plate) and the manchego fondue (which is 8 pieces of bread a very tiny cheese-​based dip).
Barcelona has a number of gin-​based drinks. I tried the lemon-​ginger, strawberry-​basil, and grapefruit-​sage. All were excellent. I do not recommend the $ 3 tonic upgrade, however, as it isn’t particularly noticeable.
The restaurant was completely dead; roughly 8 or 9 tables of 2 – 4 people, yet service was surprisingly slow. We had to flag down our server to order food, and he seemed a bit surprised. Plenty of staff, mainly hostesses, roaming around. Seems to me that there are some kinks to work out but it’s nothing that can’t be fixed.

Barcelona Tavern is a totally funky space with bright coloured, graffiti art, large glass vases and plenty of space. Spread out over two levels with plenty of booths and a large floor that could be opened — you could throw one heck of a party here! And this very well may be the case during a Friday or Saturday night, but on a mellow Monday, we had quite the different experience with some incredible moments and some not so note worthy. How you play your card at Barcelona will depend whether you have an ok experience or a great one. For the sake of positivity and if you know what to expect, I’m going with 4-​stars in this review.:) Here’s what to do:
What to do:
1. Go here on a Monday night for their 10 pizza special. Our group of Unilocalers went with the Truffled Mushroom one and the Cow Pie and fell head over heels for the mushroom one. For $ 10, this is a steal of a deal and the perfect item to wash down their delicious and creative Gin & Tonics.
2. Get their delicious and creative Gin & Tonics! I had the Strawberry Basil and the Saskatoon berry ones. Both were incredible. Fresh fruit and herbs and so many Saskatoon berries muddled in their it was almost difficult to drink. This is a great choice for an after work or after dinner drink.
3. Monday Sangria special — These were right up their with the Gin & Tonics and if you come in on a Monday, they’re cheap too! A jug of Sangria and a Mushroom Truffle pizza for $ 27? Such a great offer!
4. The Churros are out of this world. I may have finished the chocolate sauce on a spoon and dipped in the leftover sugar.
What not to do:
I’m not too fully versed in the world of tapas, and while I know they are small bar snacks, I’ve always ordered a variety to share among the table, the end result being a decently balanced multi-​course meal that everyone gets to share into at one time.
At Barcelona Tavern, the tapas seemed a little more like an appetizer section on a pub menu. Great as a snack, but any combination of them isn’t really going to add up into what you would call a full dinner.
Certain items were plated really strangely for sharing, like the Tomatoes Barcelona on two large pieces of bread (which we then awkwardly tried to rip apart with our butter knifes so we could share with the group) or the Lobster Ravioli, while freaking delicious, is only two raviolis. Really hard to share between multiple people.
I think some friendly advice or suggestions from the servers to order a good tapas meal with the right amount of food would go a long way here. On such a slow night, it seemed there was plenty of room to be wowed by great service, but it was pretty much non-​existent.
I’d love to come back to continue working my way through that delicious cocktail list and to order that Mushroom pizza on a Monday again. But for a seated meal with table service, as of right now, I think I’d give it a miss.
Seriously though. Those gins! Go now!
Huge thanks to Sarah W. for throwing an Unnoficial Unilocal Event here so we could check it out! If you don’t already follow her reviews, you definitely should! -

Been here twice for lunch. Both times have experienced good food and good service. One of my friends is on a gluten-​free diet, and there several dishes are gluten free, though the server stumbled a little and had to check it out before coming back and pointing them out. She did it cheerfully so still full marks. I had the paella, and it was delish. Very nicely made and the seafood was very good. One of my friends had burger and fries and the fries (which were tested by the table) was crispy on the outside and soft on the inside (yes!).
Overall, good noise level, high ceilings. One small minus — unless you get a table on the mezzanine up front or a booth, you will be seated at a table with high bar stool chairs, If you are uncomfortable with those, make sure you point it out or ask /​reserve something else. I didn’t like it, my legs dangled. Otherwise god place, fast service.

An improvement over the previous Belgo concept. Newer, fresher look, good menu and service is definitely more attentive and professional.
I brought my small but mighty work team here for a goodbye luncheon. They were quick to take our drink order without making us feel rushed. They returned in a reasonable amount of time for our lunch orders. I had the chicken prosciutto club and it was very well made with a great presentation. The side salad was tasty with a perfect balance of lettuce and fixings with a tangy house dressing. The sandwich had a tomato type dipping sauce that also was quite good with a lot of flavour. Another coworker had a burger and he said it was tasty, albeit large. Service remained spot on throughout the meal.
Its a larger space and therefor can fit a lot of tables but the noise levels were still comfortable — we could still converse. Things were quite clean and fresh looking to in terms of layout and design. The menu had a great range of options from share items to more traditional sandwiches, entrees etc. There are a few other things I’d like to try next time I go (always a good sign if you are thinking of a next time).
You can reserve online which also always gets points with me!

Came here after a loud and busy evening down the street at another bar. This place is swanky and has great décor — love the mismatched chairs. We came just before the kitchen was closing, but luckily our server snuck in our order of churros just in time. I loved their selection of gin and tonics — I went with the strawberry mint and it was spectacular both visually and taste-​wise. The churros came out nice and warm with two dips — a dulce de leche and chocolate. They were amazingly delicious, I definitely will be back again to try their tapas.

Great new place in downtown Calgary!
We went for drinks and some late night snacks and really enjoyed it. Tried the little fondue with baguette crisps, drizzled with a spicy oil. Really good! The patatas bravas were okay. The churros though! Oh, the churros! They knocked it out of the park with that one!
I tried a Strawberry and basil gin and tonic. Amazingly refreshing with real strawberry slices and tons of basil leaves, then topped off with freshly cracked black pepper. Perfectly balanced drink!
Definitely going back again!

I’m glad we finally got to try out Barcelona Tavern last Friday. Our teens, who love tapas and paella were thrilled that they could enjoy the experience with us (until 10 pm anyway!)
Our server was very busy but managed to serve our group quite well, with the exception of water refills…
The dishes that we ordered arrived within a short amount of time and they were all amazing! I particularly loved the ‘Bomba’, Veal meatballs, and the Paprika Prawns. The Paella was good too, though we did find it a tad greasy.
I love that they have a Gin bar and hubby and I were both very happy with our cocktails.
It is a fairly loud spot because of the acoustics of the restaurant but it has a fun, late night vibe.
Oh, and the churros were pretty darn good too!

I came here for a work lunch… they seemed to either misplace our reservation or just not log it, which I don’t see how since a co-​worker used opentable. Eight of us ended up getting placed on a round table made for 5, which didn’t leave much elbow room.
The space? Looks pretty good, the service — could do much better. We all ordered our own dishes except we shared the Parmesan Truffle Frites & Lobster Ravioli… both delicious! I ordered the House salad with dressing on the side and it came as asked… a co-​worker ordered the same as me but without the pumpkin seeds and got both the seeds and dressing. people seemed confused with our table in general,
The wine list looked promising and I want to go back and try out some more tapas…

Opening weekend gives it two stars, but I recommend waiting for them to get their act together, if you really need to try them. Food that is not properly prepared, service that is amateur, and a menu that is way over priced and has paper napkins, an atmosphere that lacks inspiration, I don’t see them staying open for longer than 6 months. Maybe good for lunch but with the time it took to serve us, it might be dinner time before you are served.
If you want Tapas, there are much better places in town to go to that will cost less, allow you to hear each other, have better service, and much better food.
The upside is that the patrons get to know each other as the compare how bad the experience is.