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Restaurant Review: La Parilla (SA1, Swansea)

11th July 2007

Located on the new SA1 development, La Parilla advertises itself as a Spanish Grill Restaurant. Once seated, there was little Spanish influence to be seen aside from the music. The restaurant itself is cleverly laid out, with seating arranged so that even when it's packed the place could still feel fairly intimate. To order food, we went up to the main counter and chose starters off a menu board then chose our main course from a selection of fresh fish and meat that can all be seen on display beneath the glass counter. Seeing all this fish and raw meat meant that you could really see the freshness and quality of the ingredients used, although ordering food at the counter could often mean queuing if the restaurant was busy.

Ordering Garlic Prawns as a starter meant a simple dish, with prawns covered in freshly crushed garlic and garlic lemon oil covering them. It tasted lovely, and even more garlic came from the heavily infused garlic bread we were given to accompany our starter.

Our main courses consisted of one Mango Chicken, and one Fillet Steak. Both were cooked to perfection, and serving the chicken with both Mango Chutney and fresh mango was simply gorgeous. The steak was fresh and tender, and both mains were served with a choice of chips, jacket potato or new potatoes. A salad option was also available. One flaw in this otherwise perfect meal was that there were no apparent vegetarian options available (excluding the fish).

For dessert we had Tiramisu and a Chocolate Orange Bomb, which was basically orange ice cream covered in hard chocolate. The ice cream was beautifully smooth with a lovely presentation for the whole dish - but unfortunately this presentation seemed slightly impractical as the tall glass with a thin stem meant a difficult job of cracking the chocolate open without having the hold the glass still. The tiramisu was nice and made fresh, but the consistency was slightly too thick and not quite light enough for the perfect dessert.

On the whole, the atmosphere and meal at La Parilla was excellent - so excellent, in fact, that a table was booked there and then for family celebrations around graduation. The staff were brilliant and you never had to wait around to get their attention. For three courses it works out at around £25 per person (including drinks) - although allow more for main courses such as lobster and certain pieces of meat. The décor of the restaurant is also very well done, although some of the tables are slightly too close together to allow a more personal meal. There is also adequate parking in the pay and display car park just past the restaurant on the right.

Amy Wilkinson