Café Europa

Hankering some small Spanish dishes (tapas to be untechnical) last night (Jaleo ummmm), we revisited Café Europa in Shockoe Bottom. Our first visit to this place was far from satisfactory with some really terrible service and forgettable food. The last time around, our food arrived late. We didn’t get our bread till right before the meal and our waiter didn’t get us our drinks. We didn’t even see our waiter for around 10 minutes and naturally he disappeared once he took our order. We had to complain to the hostess (and 2 tries later) got our drinks!! But… we decided to give this place a second shot.

Wrong decision!

This time, they outdid themselves. Our food took 50 minutes to arrive!! Now, any kitchen might be overwhelmed and understaffed on a given night, that too a Sunday night. So fine, but it definitely behooves the staff to at least stop by after 20-30 minutes and inform the table of the delay. We got nothing. After flagging down our waitress at approx breaking point (40 minutes), we were informed “2 more minutes”. The manager showed up and apologized (fine). We declined his offer for more bread and a round of drinks. Another 10 minutes later, the food arrives. Despite the nature of the restaurant, this place believes in delivering all the food at once (debatable?)

Now this is a “tapas” restaurant, with a fairly standard “Mediterranean and Spanish-inspired” menu. There were the usual risottos, paellas, a couple of chorizo-type small dishes, a few plates of cheeses, nuts and olives, helpfully split between seafood, meat and vegetarian categories. We picked a mix of 6 plates. Our last trip we had picked 7 and found that a bit too much.

The bread which also arrived late was terrible. It was undercooked and hence a bit chewy in spots, served with olive oil and balsamic vinegar which really didn’t do much to rescue it. Quickies on what we had: asparagus with parmesan cheese (fair), croquettes of potatoes with sundried tomato (good), rockfish ceviche (decent), stuffed shrimp wrapped in jamon (tasteless), stuffed piquillo peppers with chorizo and chicken (decent) and braised duck (terrible, gave me a little stomach ache after). The previous time, I can only remember the grilled squid (burnt) and the salmon (dull).

The good: I’m not completely bashing the place. They have a pleasant little lounge downstairs, a nice brick façade and décor and a fairly large menu. On our visits, a couple of the dishes were pretty decent but such a low strike rate isn’t worth it, especially since the ones that weren’t were terrible. So statistically speaking it is possible to get a good meal at Europa (service notwithstanding). In contrast, when I think of Jaleo, maybe 1 or 2 dishes would be off the mark, if at all.

The check came to around $50 (needless to say we didn’t stay for dessert). Should we have been comp’d something (maybe one dish)? Perhaps. To be fair, I guess the manager did offer us a drink, right? I don’t think it would have made a difference (certainly wouldn’t have been a big deal financially) but it would have reflected some degree of customer care on the part of the restaurant (ie we’re sorry we didn’t get you the food on time and definitely sorry for not even checking up on you while you waited).

Bottomline: F/C-. Café Europa is definitely off the list. The service is horrendous, the food not worth it.