El Parador

Don't know what planet the other reviewers where on when eating at El Parador but I had a meal there last week and I thought the food was excellent, the hake and cod quite simply out of this world, the Calamares unlike others I have had in some of the more well known Tapas Eateries in London where succulent and melted in my mouth, the meatballs nice and moist in a rich garlicky and tomato sauce, had a few others things and where all spot on.
Yes it is very busy and at times noisy but that's the price you pay for eating in a successful and well looked after Restaurant, apparently its been around 20 years …they must be doing something right… will return
Nick D

I am sorry but I would not consider this restaurant for “best tapas” No way!!! I arrived around 18:00 (opening time for dinner) and they looked like upset.
I had Grilled Octopus (not fresh at all) and spiced chorizo (extremely salty) No way that I would recommend this restaurant, ever!!! Go to Cigala, barrafina or Tapas brindisa if you want to have a real taste of Spain.

Max

I visited this place with my husband on a busy Saturday night after having read good reviews about the place. I really feel the urge to add my review in order to balance the much too overrated reviews.
We started out with quite high hopes for this small restaurant. The atmosphere was pleasant, but the noise level very high. The service was friendly and quick to seat us, but we several times after this we had to call out loud to get their attention. We ordered five different tapas. The vegetarian ones were OK – patatas bravas and a beetroot salad. Not much to spoil about these uncomplicated dishes. The two fish dishes, bacalao (cod) and grilled squid were almost too disgusting to eat. The cod was soaked in a bowl of cooking oil with a burnt flavor, almost like petrol. The squid was dry, rubbery and tasted very stale. The meat dish (duck) was an absolute disgrace as well. Again, the dish was served in a bowl of “petrol” and is was much too rare. In fact, we only tasted one bite each and then decided to leave it. Admittedly, we should have complained about the food. But the waitresses were too busy drinking tequila shots in the bar and reeling in new customers to bother attending to our table. The table next to ours got their coffees and desserts and looked quite pleased, so we decided to try the “postres” since we were still very hungry after leaving most of the food. We ordered chocolate mousse and coffee. The coffee was very nice and hot, but the chocolate mousse was heavy and much too sweet – almost no dark chocolate taste to it. We quickly started regretting ordering the dessert, since both of us started feeling quite sick. We settled the bill (70 Pounds!!) and quickly left the place to go out for some fresh air. The rest of the night both of us got very sick and needed to run to the bathroom.. a typical case of food poisoning. Don't know whether the raw duck, stale squids or the chocolate mousse caused it, but bottom line is that we both got really sick from eating in this place. Food was far below any resonable standard, the staff was drunk and unattentive, and we ended up having our evening ruined – and at a very high price. Don' t go there. Take your good money elsewhere, this place is not even worth a pence!