Restaurante Balandro

This is a stylish seafront bar and restaurant. A recent tapas lunch there found the place packed and turning well-heeled local people away. We had ‘tortilla de camerones’ – shrimp fritters, which were beautifully crispy, if not terribly prawny tasting. ‘Revuelto de berejenas’ was a delicious concoction of tasty large shrimps in eggplant and egg, with a cheese topping. Lastly we had a plate of red mullet done like white bait (‘salmonetes fritos’), which was cooked to perfection. With beer and coffee the bill was 40 euros. Service was indifferent, at least to non-Spanish speaking tourists. An interesting experience in a trendy place. Next time we may try a more traditional back street bar, though.

Balandro came heavily recommended via Trip Advisor and when we arrived the place was certainly bustling, something we took as a promising sign.

The food however was distinctly lacklustre. It aims for a modern spin on tapas but gets it wrong by some distance. I had a ‘beef millefeuille’ that on paper sounded interesting, but in reality was layers of bland bolognese style beef sandwiched between pastry sheets and buried in a mound of equally flavourless cheese. A salad of cheese and roasted apple sounded fabulous, but it was adorned with two types of nuts, a sickly dressing and all other manner of needless additions.

It soon became apparent that the menu (and indeed the place itself) is the epitome of style over substance, with the hip modern surroundings attracting young urbanites as the place to be seen. It’s a bar and social space first, a restaurant second.

For me Tapas is about simplicity and great quality ingredients, neither of which were really in evidence at Balandro.