Los Arcos

I went to Los Arcos twice last week with my wife. First visit was to their lovely bar area for some drinks and a couple of tapas. The service was amazing, friendly, caring, and with staff immediately paying attention to us from the moment we arrived. You can see everyone in the staff has been well trained and it feels like you're being welcomed to the place by a friendly Spanish family, rather than a bunch of people who just work there. The few tapas we sampled, delicious. Ambiance, great: you're surrounded by lovely traditional precision set tilework around the place - showing excellent dedication to details all around! Could not fault the experience at all, five stars. Encouraged by this, I booked a table for a dinner at 20.30 on a Friday night. Enter a different reality. The place was overbooked so it took us 10min to even catch the attention of the staff to be welcomed. They suggested we start with drinks at the bar and then move to a table in 20 minutes or so. 57 minutes later, we finally managed to get an actual table, after much struggle to catch someone's attention. The table we sat at was empty much earlier... Once at the table, we were given olives which I thought was an apology of sorts for the delay, but this was unclear. We were charged for them initially in the end. Then it took another 15min to get an order in, despite of our best efforts to catch the waiters attention. After the order was in, things did get better though. Food came fairly quickly, the quality of service we received on our first visit returned...even the elderly Spanish gentleman who I assume is the owner came to chat with us and many other guests. Food was delish, with the wild boar being perhaps a bit overdone for my liking, but otherwise everything was spot on. Upon departure, we asked the olives and the discretionary service charge to be removed from the bill, explaining we waited an hour to be seated from when our reservation was meant to start, and then some more waiting. Boy did we get a bad look from the waiter, overshadowing any apology he tried to make. Los Arcos, you're a gem of a restaurant but you have to get your table booking management right, even on busy nights! And if you mess up, how about an honest and clear apology? (For example, "sorry, we didn't do this right. It will be an hour and if you want to wait, have a drink on us at the bar"). Would probably be cheaper than losing possible repeat customers...Despite the lovely food, our night finished with a bad taste in our mouths. We got home so upset and tired. I'm torn. You have almost everything in place to offer a truly exceptional dining experience, but then this basic stuff goes wrong magnificently and gets on the way of it. This was about to be my new favourite go-to place for a good dinner out, or for drinks and light tapas. Maybe I will come again, maybe this was just a one off? I really hope so, but if I ever revisit, maybe I will avoid booking during the weekend.
May 1st, 2023

What a fantastic and wonderful Tapas Restaurant The service was amazing, staff very friendly and makes you feel very welcome and at ease. I would highly recommend the delicious food, so many beautiful flavours in each tapas dishes. The food is presented very well. We would like to thank everyone for a wonderful and fabulous meal and all the staff who made it an excellent experience.
Apr 17th, 2023

Apr 17th, 2023

Food : 5/5 | Service : 5/5 | Atmosphere : 5/5 More
Apr 11th, 2023

Delicious food, smell of Spain straight after entering the restaurant. Wry nice atmosphere and friendly staff. Very loud though, but it is Spanish style
Apr 1st, 2023