21/10/2024: Excellent in every respect. Genuinely authentic and consistent. Staff were brilliant. I've been raving about this place since my first visit
28/09/2024: Las Tapas is in a great location right in the middle of Greystones. Its warm ambience with candles and old school Spanish décor makes for a welcome change from the rush for glass and steel that too often befall restaurants these days. It has a genuine authentic charm to it that makes you feel like you've popped into an old school Barcelona Tapa bar. The service is warm and pleasant and relatively efficient, with a mixture of local and Mediterranean staff.
The menu looks great with some regular choices that you'd expect from a decent tapas - Albondigas (meatballs), Pil Pil prawns, Padron peppers, Bravas etc, interesting vegetable dishes and plenty of gluten free options if required (although why bravas needs flour adding to it I don't know?)
The wine menu on the other hand is distinctly average and expensive. The Whites, for example, are heavy on Pinot Grigio, Sauvignon Blanc etc. I'd expect more Spanish grapes in a Spanish restaurant. But it's understandable in that they most likely sell better due to being recognisable and familiar. They're also expensive. There isn't a Spanish grape based wine less than 40 euro. A suggestion might be to find a genuinely decent basic house Spanish rueda or similar that can be bought for a reasonable price maybe 30 euro.
But let's go back to the food. After 15 years of existence, time seems to have taken it's toll on the menu. It feels like they've run out of enthusiasm for the food. The problem is that it's just not very tasty. It's not unpleasant, just a bit dull. Let's take the basic - Prawn Pil Pil. You get around 6 very small prawns with hardly any garlic or chilli. It's bland and uninspiring. With Pil Pil you want to soak up every last piece of the oil and garlic with bread, but you just don't with theirs. The prawns are tasteless and whilst OK, the dish just doesn't inspire. There's just no care gone into it.
On the vegetables, take the Espinacas con garbanzos (spinach and chickpea) as another example. It tastes like a tin of chickpeas with spinach and a tin of tomatoes thrown in. There's no flavour, no seasoning and it's just dull. In Spain, it might have had a dash of sherry in it, or a hint of pimenton, but there's no seasoning at all, nothing. It reminds me of the La Tasca chain the UK. All the usual dishes, but bland and adapted to perceived local/Irish tastes.
It feels like they've given up. And that's a shame because I SO want this place to be great. With options like Port House Ibericos, El Cellar Blackrock and of course Tapa de Lola, people are upping their tapas game in Dublin and Wicklow needs to take note.
With such a great location and ambience and very friendly staff, this place could be legendary. I hope that the fabulous team take note and have a refresh of their menu. I get that prices have gone up, but you don't need to spend a lot on Spanish food to make it great, you just need to have the passion behind that food, and that flame seems to have been dwindling. Let's hope that they can turn it round, as this place could and should be so much better.
My advice would be to go and see what the competition have been doing and take note. Reduce the size of the menu and focus on making fewer but better tasting dishes that they could become famous for. Customers in Greystones and the surrounding areas have changed. There are plenty of exciting options popping up now that are pushing the boundaries, and they expect more.
Las Tapas needs to change. It doesn't need a visual transformation - that's part of it's charm, it just needs to refocus on it's core - the food, and re find its passion. I really hope it does
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