El Pirata

After checking out of the Park Lane but before heading to Paddington to catch the H.E., I suddenly realized I had not eaten anything all day and it was already 2pm. Knowing I was headed to one of the many awful LHR hotels, I figured it’s best to eat in the city, and all I had to do was look up and see the sign on El Pirata.
I might has well have taken the 2.5 hour flight to Madrid, because this was authentically Spanish, down to the service staff with whom I enjoyed a great conversation while polishing up my rusty español.
This was a standard snack type meal — chorizo in red wine sauce, grilled calamari, a tortilla de patatas, and of course, a vino tinto. Some bread and garlic aioli was served as well.
With the misty afternoon, my experience at el Pirata was a comforting meal in so many ways — the flavor, the wine, and discussion about Spain with the staff.
I’m not entirely up on the Spanish dining scene in London, but having lived in Spain for a year, I can very much tell you that this place is the real deal and serves up some fantastic flavors that, if you closed your eyes, would have you thinking you’re on the Iberian peninsula.

walked in, several waiters passed by while avoiding eye contact, and there is no host to greet you and make you feel welcome. got a «how dare you» look from a flagged down waiter once I indicated I had no reservation. got seated next to toilets and started enjoying lavatory smells everytime door swung open. after a long period of inattention, I had to walk up a flight of stairs to flag a waiter and ask to be reseated. I figured there should be no problem, since there were plenty of empty tables available everywhere, and it was quite past prime dinner time. after checking with El Hefe (oh there he is, hiding in the back, instead of greeting customers, up front, and making us feel welcome), he received a quick headshake, and then had to profusely apologize to us about not being able to reseat us. newsflash: just because a celebrity had a good time here, once, it doesn’t mean the next batch of your doorwalking revenue will. instead walked over to Prezzo kiddy corner away, and left my money for far better service and dining experience. net-​net: won’t be back, despite it being around the corner from our hotel.

Really mediocre food, nothing special. Sangria was too sweet for my taste. Spinach salad was ok, but the rest of the food was bland and had too much oil in it :(place is fun though!

El Pirata has been sitting on my restaurant list for a while, so when I was thinking of a place to grab dinner with a friend who works in Victoria, it was a pretty obvious choice. They don’t have a booking system on their website, nor do they use Opentable or Bookatable, which leaves you the options of either booking by phone or by email. At first I called and found it relatively easy to make a reservation, but then I didn’t get a confirmation so I also emailed to follow up. When my friend was running late and we had to move the reservation back by half an hour with just a few hours’ notice, they were also very accommodating. All in all, quite painless to get a table. When I arrived, I was seated immediately in the downstairs part of the restaurant.
The other thing I loved about this place is that they have set menus! We really just wanted to catch up and talk, and it was great to not have to spend time agonizing over the options and instead go with one of the two set menus. They are also incredible value, for either £18 or £22 /​person. We went with the £22 option, and we got three courses of tapas — first bread /​aioli and a round of cold tapas, like parma ham and some stuffed peppers. We then had fried fish and calamari, prawns, and some chicken wings. Finally we had large servings of lamb, steak, and Spanish omelette. All the food was fantastic, but my favourites were the lamp chops, the calamari, and the prawns. Everything was delicious and we were both incredibly full at the end.
As for the drawbacks, service was not fantastic as I had to ask a number of times for water and for the bill before I managed to get either. The table for 2 is a bit small to fit 3 plates of tapas at a time. But overall, I thought El Pirata was great value and I would definitely recommend it for excellent tapas without a wait! (Here’s looking at you, Brindisa…)

Just had an excellent meal at El Pirata tonight. We ordered a selection of tapas and a bottle of red wine and had a grand time. Service is a bit ad hoc — not all that bad but more attention can be paid so diners would not have to attempt to pour their water or wine by themselves. Just a thought/​observation. We were perfectly equipped to serve ourselves and I liked all of the waiters.
The tapas was fresh and well-​executed. The tortilla was moist and light. The patatas bravas was also flavorful, even though we were originally dubious about the shade of the sauce. My favorite dish was the baby eels (which we ordered due to a Unilocal review recommendation) and E liked the tortilla best. The croquettes jamon iberico were yummy but showed up at our table at the end so we were already quite full. It didn’t stop us from ordering the platanos fritos (fried bananas) for desert. See photo. So good.
If I’m in the vicinity again, I would definitely go back. Not pretentious at all nor crazy expensive and great tapas.
* written in collaboration with E

Very attentive service and the food was top notch. We ordered around 8 different plates of tapas and they all arrived at roughly the same time and was piping hot. Good selection of wines on the menu and if you can get there early enough or request it you can get a table outside which is a bonus during the summer.
They also have a set introduction to Tapas menu which although I didn’t try did have my slightly intrigued so another visit may be in order

Really good Tapas, really good beer, really good wine, really good service. One of my favourite Restaraunts.

Delicious food, so so wait staff.
The food:
I got the steak with manchego cheese. Yes. Perfection. 10 000% recommend.
The coworkers got the fixed tapas menu #1. I got to try several of the dishes and was very impressed with everything I tried.
We sat in the lower part of the restaurant — the wait staff ignored us for awhile until I tried to flag them down. No free refills on soda (but this might be more of an American thing).
Got a little loud and dark in the downstairs, I saw people using their cell phones as lights so they could read the menu !! LOL
But highly recommend, definitely worth going to.

Don’t let its simple store front look fool you. Escorted to the basement was at first a put-​off. But the excellent service and menu softened me. What a great experience. And food was outstanding.

Extremely poor service, grumpy waiters, food was at best mediocre. Tasted like they used ketchup to flavour the dishes. Wine was overpriced. Don’t bother.

Each of the past 3 years after hiking the famous 500mi pilgrimage El Camino de Santiago in Spain I celebrate with a trip to London and El Pirata. On each occasion the dishes are similar to those I enjoyed in Spain and I give them an A+. The service however I’d give a D–
I was basically ignored throughout the meal on each occasion and received terribly slow service. So yesterday, unfortunately, was the last time I will return to this hot spot in London. Looks like Bilbao Berria next to the Sofitel might be a new London hotspot to try next.

I’ve been here a few times over the years and it never disappoints.
The food is some of the best tapas in London. The service is great — very attentive, but not in your face. The wine list offers a great range of choice!
Would recommend either sitting upstairs at a table, the bar or outside.

Whenever my coworkers and I hold meetings in London, we make El Pirata one of the dinner spots. They serve tapas of course, and has two set menus to choose from with about a dozen dishes each. In addition they have individual appetizers and entrees too. Our party of six had an excellent dinner here, with good wine and food. Service was great in the beginning but then was a bit slower midway through the meal. Some memorable dishes were:
— Spanish Jamon — similar to Italian prosciutto. Absolutely addictive.
— The free bread has this amazing, creamy garlic mayo that was full of flavor.
— Both the braised baby lamb shanks (BTW they were huge with lots of meat) and grilled lamb chops were cooked perfectly.
— Octopus was tender and had a very spicy kick. One of my coworkers never had octopus but this probably made him a fan.
Probably only minor disappointment was the pork belly — it had a real hard, crispy and thick skin but could probably use some more cooking time. Dessert options were also limited — mostly Crème brûlée, flans, and rice puddings.
Would definitely recommend this restaurant — you get to sample lots of different dishes and get full by a nibble at a time.

What a great night. We had a group of 6 and were given a secluded table that really added to our evening. Wine, food, service all excellent. I have been here a few times over the past 10 years and even though this was my first visit in 2 years I felt like a weekly regular with how warmly we were treated.

Maybe I came in with low expectations since I just came from Barcelona and this restaurant is in a place not know for culinary expertise but this was a very good meal. Service was friendly and the food was very good. The bartender made an excellent calimocho… though it is a very easy drink to make.

Nothing extraordinary but still pretty good tapas. My only complaint is the watered down sangria

This was a Unilocal suggestion after I tried looking for Tapas Bars somewhere near Hyde Park Corner. The tapas bar located in Mayfair is a less than 5 minute walk near the Hard Rock Café.
While the food is not extraordinary, there is a rather appealing energy that makes up for it. A lot of the food was fried and generously drenched in oil. The squid and the prawns were both fresh but were floating in oil. The baby eels were delicious but again, too much oil.
The service is well above average however, with friendly and patient waiters offering adequate help to supplement your thoughts on the menu. Our waitress even rightly told us that we might be over-​ordering which we found out to our shock that we much more than over ordered.
I would probably come back to try out some of the vegetarian tapas just to make sure I didn’t miss something, but definitely not something that would come to my mind when recommending a tapas bar.

Everything was consistently mediocre, even the sangria, which was pretty watered down. Didn’t realize until later that this place advertises on the tourist maps they give out to you at hotels (immediate bad sign!).
On the bright side, the server was nice and attentive (though, being 1 of maybe 3 tables in a big dining room doesn’t hurt either), and watching the well overindulged May-​December couple at the bar provided a nice distraction from the meh food.

My coworker told me I had to come here for the food… well the food was decent, okay tapas, great paella but AWESOME drinks! Come here for their drinks! This was a great meal to splurge on and finish off a week long trip to London.

It was Friday, 930pm, and we were in Mayfair looking for a place to have a last minute birthday meal (large group of 3). We stumbled across a very busy El Pirata and thought we would give it a try. The waiter told us it would be at least a 45 mins wait for a table, but we could sit and eat at the bar straight away (which is what you would do in Spain so it didn’t bother us).
The service staff were friendly and prompt enough considering it was a full house. I was quite surprised at the reasonable prices considering the location. We ordered some cocktails and set menu 2, once the food started to arrive we switched to Sangria. The sangria was fine, nothing special, but definitely drinkable.
Food: The food was very tasty. The tapas frias (cold) was fine, nice selection of cured meats, seafood and salad. The monk fish medallions, prawns and calamares, all tasted fresh, not over cooked, nor swimming in oil. I particularly enjoyed the peppers stuffed with hake mousse.
The steak medallions and lamb cutlets were tasty and cooked well, the potato omelet was fine, by this stage I was filling up. I didn’t care much for the chicken wings, but that just personal taste.
The atmosphere in the restaurant was buzzing, we got talking to the groups sitting both sides of us at the bar. I noticed one of them eating something that looked amazing. They said it was baby eels, I had to give it a try. 1 x «Gulas con patatas asadas» please (baby eels in olive oil, garlic, dried hot chili peppers & roasted potatoes). This was my favourite dish of the evening, very tasty (if you like garlic), my wife couldn’t bring herself to try them as some appeared to be still swimming in the oil (fresh??).
The meal came to about £40 per person, which included a lot of food, cocktails and multiple jugs of sangria, not bad in my opinion. I would quite happily recommend giving El Pirata a try if you are in the area. Food was good and reasonably priced, and the service was friendly.

Junto al Hyde Park en Mayfair, una de las mejores zonas de Londres, encontrarás un restaurante español de primera clase como es El Pirata. Tapas, menús de mediodía y un verdadero ambiente de España donde poder disfrutar de los mejores caldos en compañía de tus amigos. Pimientos de piquillo, montaditos de jamón serrano… Simplemente delicioso.