Fantastic and very nice!

Tragaluz was a good experience for us.. nice place and good food.. waht else?

After a week of wonderful experiences in Barcelona, my wife and I went to Tragaluz for an early dinner on a Saturday night. Out stay was brief, but without a doubt, it was the worst dining experience we have had anywhere in the world. The consistently rude and xenophobic staff is a unique disgrace to the otherwise amazing city of Barcelona and the country of Spain.

I felt obligated to write this review in order to save others from a similar experience. Although all diners and restaurants have good days and bad days, this was very different from anything we have ever experienced. And I'm not in the habit of complaining. In fact, I have never written a review that was even slightly negative of any restaurant before.

Here's the bottom line: From the moment we walked in, we were intentionally treated like dirt by everyone from the hostess to the waiters. They seemed to take pleasure in doing so. And they took even greater pleasure when we decided to leave without even ordering a meal. Despite this treatment, my wife and I responded with humility, grace and respect, although the staff's consistently bad behavior did not deserve respect. We were extremely uncomfortable. Interestingly, I don't think they were treating everyone the same way. I'm speculating, but I believe that we were singled out because we are Americans.

A few examples: We arrived slightly after our reservation time and were told we needed to wait even though the place was essentially empty, and clearly, none of the staff was busy. We basically had to seat ourselves even though other couples that arrived after us were seated immediately. Once seated, we were ignored for about 10 minutes, even though there were many waiters doing nothing but standing around talking...within 15 feet of our table! Finally, we received menus, which were given to us as though it was an imposition. After the snooty waiter rushed off, I noticed there wasn't a wine list. When the waiter returned, I asked for a wine list. He seemed extremely put off by this request and left with a great deal of attitude. He then returned and almost dropped the wine list in my lap without even looking at me or saying anything. Then he looked at my wife and said "what do you want?". That's when I almost lost it. Instead, we just got up and left. On the way out, we asked for out coats and received a very smug and knowing smile from the hostess. Perhaps it was my imagination, but I sensed that she knew exactly what had happened.

If you want a truly memorable high end dining experience in Barcelona, try El Xalet De Montjuic. Great view, great room, great staff, great food and drink. We won't forget this experience either.

I´ve just been for a wonderful lunch this afternoon at Tragaluz. I loved the atmosphere ' even though we arrived relatively early at 1.30 but thought we were very well attended to. Our waiter was very friendly and smiley and fussed just enough but not too much to make you feel over ´supervised´. We ordered a cheapish rose wine from the wine list which was fine, but we´re not great wine experts ' there was a wine on the list for 650 euros!, but as I say ours was fine at 13 euros. On the menu I think I made fortunate choices since looking at other tables food they didnt look as interesting as mine ' I chose the pulpo gallego with guindillas ' great idea since it being carpaccio takes away all the chewiness of the pulpo, makes it soft and easier to palate, and the guindillas ' green chilli, gave it bite. For my second course and I recommend this highly was the tataki of tuna, which was quite fascinating. I had no idea what a tataki was when I ordered it but it´s basically raw tuna steak with these gelatine soya sauce flakes scattered over, and topped with a seared tomato whose skin has been lifted up on itself to make a flower on top then put under the grill I presume. The whole meal must have been produced with a lot of stress in the kitchen to get all the ingredients just cooked but not too cooked. I was really impressed. Thorougly recommend it. We skipped puddings cause we were full but had a lovely afternoon and felt really comfortable and not pressured in any way. Super. We´re going to try the Japanese restaurant opposite next, since the Tragaluz menu had a very Japanese influence so we think maybe that´s where it´s at next time. Please go there though, dont listen to the other reviews that were disgruntled, I thought it was really special in an effortless quality kind of way.

I am a gourmet home cook and have a great passion for food. Recently we went to Tragaluz after having read several excellent recommendations, it was somewhere I thought worth trying for a special meal out. Sadly, the whole experience was terrible and I can honestly say it was a total waste of money.
The place itself is okay but the decoration is all over the place and it can´t decide if it wants to be contemporary cutting edge of old world traditional. The glass roof is quite nice and perhpas on a sunny summer´s evening it would have been more effective - unfortunely, the weather here has been awful for 2 months and it was raining when we visited.
The service was snooty and our waiter and sommelier (it was the same person!) was lacking any human qualities. I ordered the wine, at 21 euros one of the cheapest but that´s not why I chose it. He poured it and proceeded to spill it on my Mariscal designed plate (the one used for resting all the other plates on). He also splashed the wine over the white table cloth (it was red wine). At home I use a special pourer so as to prevent such spillage, it´s surprising that a restaurant of this level hasn´t invested in one. Anyway, he took away my "Mariscal" plate to wipe off the drop of wine, I thought that he was being very attentive at the time, however, he forget to bring it back to me so for the rest of the meal I was without my under plate!
The menu itself was not very inspiring and I had a hard time finding anything worth ordering. However, I was determined to give it a go and ordered the carpaccio of veal with foie gras (difficult to go wrong with such ingredients), my boyfriend had baby broad beans with black pudding. Mine was fairly tasty but nothing that great, my boyfriend´s was okay but on the salty side.
Main courses were hard to choose from - I wanted meat as I was drinking a hefty red Monsant wine and it wouldn´t have gone well with the fish choices. I chose a boned oxtail with what looked like some interesting ingredients. My boyfriend had baby suckling pig. Both dishes were devoid of any flavour and were both dry as a bone - no nice sauces here.
After this we considered not wasting any more money on the desserts, but I had read that the desserts were worth leaving room for so we went ahead and ordered - I really wish I hadn´t. Once again, the descriptions were much more impressive than the actual article.
One thing this restaurant had was consistency - they were consistently bad with each course! As someone who has lived in Barcelona for 5 years I have learned my lesson not to bother with restaurants in this price bracket - they are all style and no content. As a Londoner, we have much better restaurants there and they are cheaper too - Barcelona is sadly a victim of its own vanity.

I adored this place. The cool decor, the organized seating and serving of the meal was great. We had the foie gras and the best white wine I have ever had, Gemelli or Gemessi. The lobster is stew is great too, but stay away from the veggie meals.

I went for a meal here and i found it far from a disappointment, in fact the service was the best id seen in any other restaurant in a long time and the people were extremely friendly and helpful with explaining the menu and had an english version of the menu with many of the waitors speaking english.

I regretfully dont recommend this restaurant, the food may be excellent but the srevice is truly lacking and amazingly compared to MOO restaurant in Omm hotel it puts to shame the rest of the chain of restaurants known as tragaluz group

I sat waiting for service, no one offered to explain the menu and when I got tired of waiting I requested the bill and leave the establishment. I was pretty annoyed to see the GM leaving and not even say " dont worry about the bill" or just bringing the bill
The whole crew of the restaurant jsut stared at us like we had 4 heads and it was not until we stood up and left that they said the bill was on them

Im used to dine in places like Buddakan, Stripped Bass looking for new avante garde places.... I think my self to be indulgent and find places that meet no Michellin stars like Xampanieria to be a better experience than the Tragaluz claims to offer

a tru disappointment I rather spend my time trying the brothers Roca MOO in hotel OMM in barcelona. A true delight and innnovative taste and smell convination that brings the gastronomis experience to a new dimension