Malaga Tapas

Wonderful authentic tapas. The service is friendly and delivered with good humour too. I may become a regular!

Always a pleasure. Never had a bad dish let alone meal, can't wait to get back for a bit of tapas. Has been in my top 5 places in glasgow for over a year. Malaga and the wee cafe in the glasgow climbing are my recommendations to anyone looking for good food but not the crazy usual town prices. Check them out

I note from some previous reviews that the restaurant must have experienced some teething problems early on. However, unlike most businesses these days, they appear to have taken every criticism to heart and to have learned from them. I have now eaten there 5 times and each time the service has been wonderful, the portions generous, the wine splendid and reasonably priced, and the staff friendly and courteous. Most importantly, the food has been phenomenal! I credit the reviewer who complained about lack of spice with the introduction of a fiery home-made mojo sauce to the patatas bravas, and a healthy dose of piquant paprika and chili to the gambas pil-pil. The gambas a la gabardina come with the lightest of crispy batters and are my daughter's favourite dish. The pinchos morunos are the best I've had (I lived in Cordoba for two years, so I know my Spanish onions!) and leave a gentle sweet-spice afterburn that helps fight off the Scottish winter. As for pre-theatre and other deals - plenty of those (5pm deals are brilliant!). On a Saturday evening, we each had 3 generous tapas from the main menu, plus dessert (I had a brilliant Copa Malagueña - ice cream, raisins and sweet Malaga wine) and coffee for £9.95 each! This is the best Spanish restaurant in Glasgow, and, I repeat, the food is phenomenal!

I have now been to Malaga Tapas four times since it opened. In the five months it has been opened, it has quickly turned into one of my favourite restaurants.

Malaga Tapas still has some teething problems. The service is consistently slow, they struggle operating the till (always check your bill!), the specials board is only written in Spanish and the deco looks a bit cheap. However, these inconveniences are outweighed by knowledgeable, friendly front staff and an excellent cook.

The pre-theatre menu is the right amount for a dinner and good value.

Spanish cooking is about very few, good quality ingredients prepared simply. This has always been the case for us. From the Granada serrano ham to the pescado en adobo and even the Spanish omelette, food has always been cooked fresh (you can check this through their kitchen window!).

Once you are used to the menu, the daily specials add a bit of surprise. They are also a good excuse to get to know the staff, especially if the restaurant is not busy.

Favourite tapas: morcilla, huevos a la cazuela, fritura de pescado and the apple cake.
Not so good: champinones al ajillo (they taste like they are stewed in wine rather than fried with garlic), paella de pollo (not enough bits).

After reading all the reviews for this place, I decide to go dine with a friend in the hope to experience some real Spanish food.

We were very disappointed at the quality and quantity of the food. As someone else has already pointed out, 4 ridiculously small "gambas pil pil" in a tiny plate, with no flavour at all, are not worth the £4.75 they cost! The fried fish had an acceptable flavour but had been clearly prepared early in advance and reheated in the microwave. Same thing for the gambas gabardina - all reheated and without that crunchy taste of just-fried, breaded food! Again, 3 wee portions of fish and 3 wee prawns are not worth the price on the menu (around £5 each dish!). The morunos kebabs were simply disgusting, extremely bad spiced and hard to eat, I could feel them burning my stomach for hours and hours after the diner! The croquettes were possibly the best part, although 2 wee tasteless croquettes for £5??!! What do they put in the dough?! The patatas bravas was a tiny portion of them (for the price!) and the sauce was neither spicy not enough. Potatoes were not crispy and I would bet that they had been reheated at the same time as the fish and the prawns!

The place is tiny and gets very noisy as the kitchen has a wee window into the seating area. There is only one waiter and a couple of chefs, which is clearly not enough - it took them more than 45 minutes for 6 tapas, half of which had been reheated!! Apart from the high prices, we were very disappointed that the waiter "forgot" to include the "all tapas £2.50" offer that was advertised for that day - I double checked when I booked the table on the phone and when we arrived at the restaurant and the waiter confirmed that ANY tapas at all would cost only £2.50 because it was a Wednesday (which would have been a much more reasonable price for what we got!). However, when we got the bill the prices were exactly the same as in the menu and no discount at all! Sadly we realised this when we were already in the train in the way back home but, anyway, I don't think it is neither right nor necessary for the customers to remind the waiters the offers they have on their own restaurants. And the last point: location is not convenient at all - too far from city centre, need to take train or subway, or drive - and the area is a bit dodgy as well !

All in all, big disappointment! Definetely not going back to that restaurant - i'd rather buy myself a Spanish recipes book and make the food myself than spending my wages on a bad quality, poorly cooked diner!

I would love this restaurant to do well.
The atmosphere is friendly and relaxed, decor very Spanish, and all the usual favourites appear on the menu.
The restaurant was open for 2 weeks when I visited, on the site of the old L'Aragosta which had sadly shut down.
We booked a table for 6.30, unusually there was no special pre-theatre offer available.
The house wine (white) was extremely good and the waiter thoughtfully explained the reasons behind this choice, which I felt was a nice touch.
Onto the food. The albondigas were very tender, seemingly as a result of slow-cooking; if not then congratulations to the chef for achieving a melt-in-the-mouth texture in a short space of time. I may be picky but i felt 3 small meatballs was not enough. Pinchos mirunos were deliciously meaty and flavoursome. The fish platter was lovely too. Slightly disappointed in the patatas bravas, not enough sauce and the sauce we did have could have done with more of a kick. The biggest disappointment was the gambas pil-pil. Expecting a very hot chilli dish, instead was a single red chilli nestling at the bottom of a plain hot oil - the flavour did not reach the prawns at all.
Dessert was good enough, I don't come to these sort of places for dessert so I don't see dessert as relevant to forming an opinion.

On balance - yes I recommend this restaurant. However I urge the chef not to hold back on the chilli, perhaps he is diluting the traditional Spanish methods to suit a Glasgow palate. There was only one waiter but I don't think he was too over-stretched and was informative throughout, we did wait a little but not too much for a relaxing early Saturday dinner in my opinion. I'm guessing more staff will be brought in as the restaurant becomes busier. The portions could be a little bigger as I usually find 3 tapas per person are ample, but left Malaga feeling a bit hungry. Go for 4!!!