Las Ramblas

Here is a story… I once was a guy who did not like wine, did not enjoy fine dining at all…
But I got to stay at the Hotel contessa for 3 nights a few years ago and I got to understand about fine wine, good food for eating at this restaurant.
If this is your fist time in Texas and you think dudes in cowboy hats are roaming the streets when you get to town– Think again.
This is very much a modern town.
The Hotel Contessa is in the downtown area and the riverwalk is it’s backyard as in you walk out the back entrance and you are right there.
Although the riverwalk is not on the same par with taking a Gondola ride in Venice; This is San Antonio– this is where you are now. enjoy :)
One of the strongest assets this hotel has is its restaurant called Los Ramblas. the décor is old spanish style which
is the style and décor of the lobby and the bar in the lobby. Very Nice ambiance indeed.
The food was just awesome. There was alot of tapas to be eaten. Most notibly the dish with Fried potatoes, parsley, and alioli, fried squash and the small lamb
chops with honey. YUMMY.
Most notibly and I dont even know if its on the menu but on the final breakfast of the conference/​meeting I was at they served steak empanada’s. As a bonus it was not spicy.
They had made enough for 100 people and in middle of breakfast they realized they would have to make a 2^nd batch for everyone which they did towards the end of breakfast.
This is something I will always remember. They could have just said” look we made 300 of these things and we dont have anymore” but they made it work.
Later on a few months later I spent the weekend there at the same hotel on my own dime and walked into Los Ramblas and after a long day of traveling and flight delays I walked in
and had the salmon with cream sherry sauce.
The locals consider Los Ramblas to be one of the top 3 – 5 restaurants in the city.
By the way the one thing this hotel, the bar and restaurant inside are not lacking is wine. Not that they are lacking in anything else.
They have this beautiful veranda overlooking part of the street that is outdoors. The first time I was here i could not stay out there for more than five minutes because it was like
over 100 degrees and hard to breathe.
The furniture in the main lobby is awesome and is next to the bar and so it has this feeling like you are in a palace in Barcelona or some place near it.

This place used to be much more authentic. No more tapas, no more typical Spanish dishes. The food was just ok. David did an excellent job waiting on us, service was impeccable. Unfortunately, will probably not return to this one– seems to have lost focus.

Let me start by saying I’ll eat just about anything. This? Inedible. The mussels were old, mushy, and just odd. I eat mussels almost everywhere that offers them on the menu, and these were the worst I’ve ever had. We couldn’t finish them they were so bad.
Then the kids meal. If there is a price at the top, a list of entrees, and a list of drinks, doesn’t it stand to reason the drink is included in the meal? Not here! My daughters «kids meal» included two burned corndog (she refused to eat them), and some fruit that was clearly left over from breakfast. All for $ 6. The milk that appeared to be included cost me an extra $ 3.50. A gallon of milk at the neighboring cvs costs around $ 2.50…holy markup.
Then the service. The guy couldn’t manage to make it to the table to check on us. After 20 min he finally brought the bar menu, but told us after we ordered food that they don’t honor happy hour in the restaurant. We ended up asking for our check with our appetizer, which took a whopping 45 min to arrive.
But hey, the bread was good. So they have that going for them?

A sad place. Don’t go there unless you want to be sad.
We went there for the tapas, but it turns out that they don’t do tapas anymore. Boring menu. Bad cocktail (and I NEVER send cocktails back) — replaced by blah house red. The tortilla soup was good — but the Caesar salad was the most tasteless thing I have ever ordered.
And they were out of two menu items — AND no olives for that horrible martini!
The staff was nice, though.
There are plenty of other boring options on Riverwalk that will make you less sad.

We went on Sunday and while the servers were nice, the portion sizes were like appetizers. The gulf shrimp was served on a tiny circle of grits and my friends $ 25 salmon was not much bigger. The river is nice, the food and menu could use some work.

I don’t usually dine at hotel restaurants as I find them for the most part low in quality and high in prices. But sometimes, for one reason or another it’s just practical to do so.
This was the case for my wife and me on Valentine’s weekend. Every restaurant in town was booked due to a huge musician’s conference in town, and the only remaining option for us was simply to dine at Las Ramblas, the restaurant in the Hotel Contessa where we were staying.
As it turned out, it was a surprisingly positive experience! The food was on par with any classy restaurant in the city, and even the service was better than most.
We had Marissa as our table server and she was a delightful person in every way. She was also very helpful and took excellent care of us throughout the whole evening.
As for food quality, the steak I had and the chicken my wife had were both fresh and cooked to perfection. We really enjoyed our dinner experience at Las Ramblas! I would recommend it to anyone visiting San Antonio.
— Cheers!

So I stayed at the hotel that this place is attached to. The hotel is beautiful and the restaurant is mediocre. I had breakfast here, which has a buffet. Needless to say, the buffet definitely wasn’t worth the money. I believe it is $ 18 a person and that is way overpriced. It’s quality is not any different from a continental breakfast. So if I were you, I recommend eating somewhere else, but if you have to eat there then just order a regular menu item for breakfast and not the buffet. Who wants to pay $ 18 for powdered eggs? If I’m paying that much, give me real eggs!

Went for dinner while in San Antonio for a conference. It was ok. Nothing that stood out as a wow, but no serious red flags either. The menu is somewhat limited and the service was pretty lack luster. I opted for the a Texas Sirloin medium rare. It came out more medium than rare, but it was just ok. Others in my party had a shrimp and pasta dish that was a reasonable size, and a beef tenderloin, also a decent portion. It wasn’t particularly busy for a Friday night, which confused me as to why we didn’t get more attentive service. It seems that there are no shortage of dining options at the Riverwalk and there is nothing distinctive about this place. Probably wouldn’t visit again since the menu was so limited. Too bad. It is in a nice location and has a nice patio.

Went for brunch, happened to be walking by and looking at hotel. Patio seating awesome, close to river bed and was only party outside. Food was decent, but the $ 13 was worth it for the location and service we got. Surprised not taken advantage of by others.

If you come for Christmas make reservations. Was told we’d have to wait three hours because of reservations although the entire time literally half of the seats in the restaurant were open. No joke no less than a dozen empty tables. And dos I mention we were hotel guests and the concierge told us we wouldn’t need reservations?!? Thankfully we were able to eat at the bar. The flatbread pizza was actually really delicious…
Never again

Just walking the river stopping in and having an appetizer and glass of wine. Ordered the crab ‘cake’ singular. I was raised in Biloxi Ms. I have caught, cleaned and eaten fresh crab my entire life. This was not that. If u can’t get a simple crab cake right, settle up and move on. $ 15 for 1 cake. presentation was very clean. Server John was spot on.

Went here on my anniversary with the wife. Made reservations in advance, and upon arriving I told the staff we needed to have a quick meal before a show downtown. Seating was prompt, and in a short amount of time we ordered a charcuterie board and the paella, giving the explicit instruction to exclude the seafood (creeps out the wife) from the paella. The waitress quickly shut down my request of adding extra chorizo and chicken instead, which struck me as ridiculous (seafood is the more expensive meat, or should be). The charcuterie board came out first with some bread, and that’s where my disappointment started. The meat was mostly a cheap salami and the cheese was not high quality either. Anyway, shortly afterward, the paella arrived with extra seafood instead of no seafood. Very frustrating, as we didn’t have enough time for this to be remade, and literally we had to remove seafood scattered throughout the paella. I could tell the visual of those squids and mussels turned my wife’s stomach, so the staff’s mistake did not add to our experience. The manager stopped by in the middle of the meal and apologized, and tried to offer us something to offset the negatives. Though we declined any particular accommodation given the time, he comped the bill and gave us free dessert. While I always appreciate restaurants going the extra mile to right wrongs, the cumulative bad memory of the meal would not be easily erased. So, I can’t give Las Ramblas a great rating; probably won’t ever go back. On a positive note, I have yet to find a better Spanish restaurant in San Antonio. Bear in mind though, that none of paellas here even rival the worst paella I ate during my recent visit to Spain.

Correction to previous review! The Las Ramblas restaurant has a lovely dining area and bar situated within the Hotel Contessa. The seating area was very warm and inviting. There were several seating areas to accommodate either a small intimate drink or dinner. We ordered drinks at the bar. The prices were reasonable and the staff at the bar was very helpful. My husband ordered a martini and I had a glass of wine. We really enjoyed the ambiance and at our next visit, we intend to try the brunch.

I don’t usually leave 5 stars for any review I do, reserving it for only the most deserving. Las Ramblas and its waitstaff are most deserving. My wife and I are professed foodies. We truly enjoy a well thought out menu and appreciate carefully prepared dishes. Las Ramblas surpassed all our expectations on each front.
We ordered the lamb shank, charcuterie for two, the asparagus, saffron rice and for the children, the fish and chips. Without going into all the details of each I can simply say the dishes were carefully presented and the taste approached perfection on all counts. Our complements to the chef.
Our service was beyond excellent. Not too fussy but very attentive. In a word, professional.
We dined alfresco next to the river walk. The restraint was not loud nor crowded.
The total experience was a pleasure. Las Ramblas earned each star they received.

Perfect night temp wize ⁵⁄₂. Daughter has good hamburger and best fries! Had shrimp grits appetizer was pretty good.
Relaxing time.

I went with a friend today for lunch… We were told that it was a Spanish restaurant and we were very disappointed. The lunch menu was very short, and the options were everything but Spanish… It looked more like a pool cafeteria menu
The tortilla soup was cold and the sandwiches were garlicky… We paid $ 60.00 for two soups and sandwiches that were not really good.
The only thing that I liked was the patio.

I never actually dined in the actual resturant side of Las Ramblas… but I did dine multiple times at the bar that is right adjacent to it. They serve a lot of the same food and drinks… So I will go ahead with my review.
The food here is just ok. The tapas were all pretty decent, the heirloom tomato salad was the best thing that I had. The service at the bar was always good. The drinks are good and priced pretty normally.
I just feel like there are better options very close by, but if you are staying at the Hotel Contessa, it is a decent and convienent option.

My husband and I had dinner here last night. Upon arriving (without a reservation) we were told it would be a 10 – 15 minute wait. We agreed that was fine and she invited us to wait in the bar. We prepared to order drinks but were there for only two minutes when she said our table was ready and led us back through a mostly empty dining room. Weird.
I ordered Paella ($ 28) and he had steak with a side of chorizo mac and cheese. His tiny $ 29 skirt steak arrived well done (not medium as he requested) and way over salted. Interestingly, his mac and cheese was under salted. My Paella arrived floating in a bed of grease/​oil — so much that I couldn’t eat anything but some of the meat on top of the rice. Our waiter kindly offered to replace it with something else but since we were already thoroughly underwhelmed with a meal that took over 30 minutes to arrive and we were tired from travel, we declined. He did comp my entrée which was the right thing to do. It’s a shame that the chef would be so irresponsible with his bottle of oil.
The saving grace was that our waiter’s service was flawless, not only for us but for the chatty threesome next to us. Also, the room that we were in was beautiful with lit glass art along the wall and the bread was delicious. Overall, the restaurant entrees were overpriced and not very good. Perhaps stick to the tapas menu at the bar?

Let me start by saying I am not a fan of hotel dining. However this is one hotel restaurant that I will return to.
I had the double cut pork chop that was so tender and juicy. It was encrusted with pecans and had a spicy applesauce that was so good, I could have eaten it by itself. I also tried the goat cheese polenta and white asparagus. Both did not disappoint.
This is one of the better restaurants on the Riverwalk. Just as good as Boudros!

Las Ramblas is a fabulous intimate restaurant located in the Hotel Contessa. With their Spanish flair décor and menu, you won’t go wrong with a selection of tapas for lunch. Crispy calamari with a lot of flavor, garlic mushrooms enough to make you feel like a sexy dragon, empanadas, and beef sliders with a huge chuck of crispy pickle — this chef knows how to make each element of the dish sparkle and pop in your mouth! The croquetas are good too! Made of potato with delicate shaved cheese on top of crispy and well seasoned breading.
There is indoor and outdoor patio seating overlooking the River Walk. The bar area is nice and easy to find in the lobby. The staff is incredibly cheerful and friendly and most important, genuine! Not a fake smile to be seen. You can tell they are treated well or hire well because the staff is on top of their game.
I need to visit more often. I hear they have a breakfast buffet and coffee bar til 10:30am. I highly recommend Las Ramblas!