Viva Madrid!

Tiny gem tucked away in downtown Claremont. Came here for tapas and Sangria, and neither disappointed. First of all the décor and ambiance matched the Spanish cuisine and made for a romantic dinner. Food was delicious and Sangria was so good we asked for a bottle to take home. Great restaurant in a great area.

By far my favorite restaurant ever! Love the sangria, the food never disappoints. I love coffee show! Every time I come here I leave so happy!

Yes, it’s small… but it’s COZY. But we love this place! Get there early or be prepared to wait… better yet, leave your cell number on the list and head across the street to Union on Yale for a glass of wine while you wait.
So much to choose from and so delicious. My favorite is the halibut in carrot sauce. The bacon wrapped dates we save for dessert.
Sangria is delicious!
Worth the wait!

This place is a little gem in downtown Claremont that we have been to a few times. Biggest issue we have is the wait time. They don’t take reservations, and they open at 5pm. It’s a small place so if you come later on in the evening, you can be waiting 2 – 3 hours easily. But the food is amazing. We have had the bacon wrapped dates, empanadas de pollo, gambas con ajillo (shrimp in garlic), oxtail soup, lamb chops, bread with Gorgonzola and pears, spicy green olives… all of which are very authentic and very good. We have been to Spain so the comparison is almost the same. Sangria, the red one, is very tasty and you can tel it’s prepared properly. Food is great in a great atmosphere. But wait time is horrendous.

Always great food here, Only down fall last time it was busy, not more than usual because it’s always busy, so our bartender/​waitress was getting everyone’s orders mixed and waited about 45 minutes for a plate. Other then that always good and will continue to come

Always an experience! Good food and service. A must if you’re visiting the lovely city of Claremont.

Beautiful Spanish place. Ambiance and servers are great. Try the Spanish coffee, salmon wrapped asparagus and papitas con Chile and the artichoke with a reduction and Chile is amazing. Get there early they don’t do reservations.

A bit hard to find but the ambiance and set up were reminiscent of a small tapas bar in Spain. The restaurant is cozy and is intimate in size. There were five of us and we ordered at least 9 tapas. Everything was tasty and well presented. Favorites were the meat cheese platters, and carne con vino to name a couple. Though my hunger was mostly satisfied I was still a bit hungry. I would suggest at least 3 – 4 tapas per person.

Waited around an hour and a half for this place.
SMALLLLLLLL.
Tucked in an alley in Downtown Claremont.
Prices are high.
FOOD IS GREAT!
SANGRIA IS ADDICTING.
Plates are small so sometimes you have to get 2 orders of each plate.
Their bread is amazing especially with the tomato sauce or dip it in your meals with sauce.
I would like to try it again to confirm my review.

Took my boyfriend for our anniversary really romantic place, thus it was small and crowded. Overall great service friendly host.

This place has been on my radar for a while and I was very disappointed when i finally had the chance to see what the hype was all about. The sangria was just red wine served with lemon wedges, no fruit and not served chilled. The mushrooms stuffed with chorizo were not even cooked… the mushrooms tasted raw and the chorizo was more of a paste. yuck! The beef chunks were so dry i couldn’t get enough juice on them to make them edible. Everyone raves about the bacon wrapped dates and honestly, being a huge fan of bacon and dates, i was not impressed. They were the smallest dates i have ever seen and were too chewy. The ONLY thing that was tasty was the chicken empanada… which wasn’t really an empanada but the sauce they cover it in was very tasty. I had high hopes for this place but the food quality is terrible. =(
Very tiny place so arrive early and good luck trying to make a reservation because they don’t answer their phone. I called about 10 times on Friday trying to make a reservation for that night but no one ever picked up the phone. We arrived around 9:15 and got seated around 9:45 so just prepare for a long wait.

Amazing spanish food! An intimate restaurant covered in decorations from floor to ceiling, it’s a feast for the eyes as well as stomach.
Tapas, paella, sangria, and a flaming drink. This place is incredible. Best of all? They have vegetarian paella! They have an extensive menu with a large variety of tapas, and even a handful of vegetarian ones.
Friends from out of town look forward to going here even if it’s an hour away. It’s THAT good.
Street parking
Tip– Make a reservation or get here early!

I’m from out of the area. Met and went with friends to Viva Madrid Sunday night.
What a fun time we had! Sangria was great! Enjoyed several of the tapas dishes. All very good and the halibut was exceptional!
Will go back again when we’re in the area and maybe even go to Claremont to just eat there!

Big kudos to my sister for taking me out for a late night tapas run at this gem of a place in Old Town Claremont. Being in the warm colored, low lit, and Spanish Colonial stylized interior of Viva Madrid makes you feel as if you were transported away from the Inland Empire to a night out in Spain — not only is this place as hole in the wall as it gets (hint: it’s inside of a hole in the wall entrance), it also has a bull head mounted on a wall to prove to you that you are definitely not, as they say, in Kansas anymore.
But the important thing of any eating establishment is the food and Viva Madrid is amazing in this regard — the bacon wrapped dates are as good as almost every review of this place says it is and the sangria, while a bit watered down (that’s good for me), had a strong fruity flavor I really liked.
We also had the squid cooked in its own ink, which went amazingly well with Pan con Ajillo, a real garlic bread drizzled with what tasted like olive oil.
All the tapas items were well under $ 10 and people running this place are knowledgeable and passionate about the food they make and serve.
While I’ve heard this place can get pretty crowded during weekends, this place was pretty light on a weekday 9pm. I will definitely come back to this place and I hope anyone reading this review gives this place a shot — they won’t be disappointed.

I studied abroad in Spain for 4 months so I had high expectations for the food, drinks, and atmosphere.
The restaurant was very tight packed, but it kind of reminded me of some of the bars and restaurants in Spain so it had a very similar atmosphere.
At first the waitress seemed a bit rude, but eventually warmed up to us once we ordered food and drinks. We weren’t bothered by the rudeness because we were use to it in Spain.
I was really excited they had Spanish beers and drinks. I ordered a tinto de verano and my friend ordered a Mahou beer. Brought back many memories.
As for food we ordered a variety of dishes. Some of them included tortilla de española, croquetas de pollo, some beef dish (vaca something), mushrooms stuffed with chorizo, patatas bravas, pan con ajo, And Spanish cheeses. The tortilla de patatas was the best way it or the bunch. Very authentic tasting and reminded me the many times I ate it there. The patatas bravas were good but too spicy. It was a little different because typically they aren’t spicy, in fact Spain there weren’t even many spicy items. The croquetas de pollo were just ok. I wish it had jamon instead. They were oddly longer than usual. I think I make better croquetas. Everything else we had were good. We didn’t get any dessert. I wish they had churros on chocolate.
I thought it was good experience. Next time I would like to try their bigger dishes like paella. But definitely would come back.

Last nights dinner… I ate like a queen! Viva Madrid has amazing small portion but sharable plates. So you can try a lot of their specialty food.
The location is right in the middle of all the shops. The restaurant is really tiny and intimate setting so be prepared to wait at least 30mins during dinner time. They do have a bar which I will be seating at next time, seems to get fun action over there.
Food was absolutely delicious. We ordered small plates like the bacon wrapped dates, chicken empanada, garlic shrimp. And main plate the Paella, the single portion is big enough for 4 people! It was all very good. Recommend this spot if your looking for something different
Coming back soon for more !

I love this place!
First off, this restaurant is located in a small little village full of restaurants and little shops. It’s cute as is already because after you eat at your restaurant of choice, you can take a nice stroll around and grab some desserts.
To get to this restaurant you walk down a little alley that’s very cool and interestingly decorated. We arrived a little before 5pm so we had to wait a bit for them to open but no biggie. They have benches right outside the restaurant in the alley so you can sit and wait. I do believe this restaurant gets pack because as we were eating more people came in so be sure to come early.
Once inside, you immediately feel like you are in Spain! The setting is extremely intimate and romantic, ideal for a date. The music made me wanted to bust out in a flamenco dance. I heard during the weekends they even have live singers which is awesome. We opt to sit at the bar and there was only one bartender/​server manning the whole fort but he was quick and efficient. He didn’t really smile but he was friendly and got our foods/​drinks out in a timely manner. Props! For food we got:
Shrimps w/​garlic and lime ³⁄₅ — Just your average dish. It was good because I love garlic! It’s worth a try but don’t expect much
Chorizo stuffed mushrooms ⁴⁄₅ — Packed with flavors and I love how everything blended together.
Chorizo stuffed squid ³⁄₅ — I’m not a fan of squid but I was willing to try because it has chorizo in it. The squid was not overly cooked and has just the right texture where I didn’t end up hating my decision to order this.
Paella ⁴⁄₅ — We got the sausage one which is supposed to be spicy, but I didn’t really think it was. It’s okay though because it was still packed with flavors. It almost reminds me of a cajun dish.
Croquette ⁴⁄₅ — If you order a lot of these you can easily get sick of them because it’s so filling but if you share then it delicious! Crispy on the outside and warm on the inside.
House sangria (red) ⁵⁄₅ — So delicious and refreshing! They give you a cup of some cubes of watermelon before they pour the sangria in and it has just the right touch.
All the dishes are fairly small (tapas style) so come with a group of people to be able to share more foods. Highly recommended!

This place was ok I wasn’t impressed at all. The only thing I enjoyed was their sangria and empenadas. Their shrimp in white wine sauce was small and expensive. The calamari for sure was frozen then deep fried. The paella had no flavor. The crew brûlée was ok.

Tapas? Yes! I will never say no to tapas!
I haven’t had any good tapas since barcelona and man, was i craving some!
Expect a wait most of any day during dinner hours. The restaurant offer table sitting and bar sitting but not a huge place.
First thing you’ll notice are all the spanish influenced decorations all up on the walls (not the best place to be in if an earthquake happened).
We ordered about 6 – 7 tapa dishes but they didn’t help much with my spanish food cravings.
The best dish out of all the ones we’ve tried is probably the bacon wrapped dates. I’m not a fan of bacon but this reminded me of the Serrano ham wrapped dates in Germany, not nearly as good but gets the job done! Cooked perfectly crispy with not too much fatty fat on the bacon.
The mushroom in wine sauce was probably one of the worst dishes I’ve tried there. It was just drowned in its sauce, not enough spices and all you taste is the white wine.
Everything else were decent but nothing popped.
The bread with tomato spread was drenched in olive oil, could have been better if there was less oil.
There’s potential here but there’s lots of room for improvement.

Took me FOREVER to find this place although it was sitting in my face the whole time LOL. I was going up and down the street pacing back and forth looking like a mad man… Then it had dawned on me to walk down the hallway to see what’s down there. Voila! Viva Madrid is a real place!
After that long time pacing back and forth, I picked up a huge appetite and who would have known after opening that wooden door I would be walking in to Narnia ;)
No seriously! Once I opened that door it’s as if I walked into some teleportation device and ended up in Madrid! I was blown away. The whole interior design, the aura, the vibe was exactly what I would expect if I was in Spain, and I’ve never even been.
Enough babbling about the looks of Narnia, and start taking about the food! I ordered a few things; Gambas Al Ajillo, Croquetas De Pollo & Gazpacho. The Gambas Al Ajillo to me is basically a shrimp scampi, but here they use large shrimp cooked in white whine with garlic, parsley, lemon juice & extra virgin olive oil. It’s GOOOOOOOD!!! Trust me when I say that. No wonder it’s a favorite dish amongst the Spanish. The croquets were on FLEEK. Just really really good. You will just have to try and understand what I can’t tell you. I have no words to describe it. Now the Gazpacho to me was a bit tricky; I’ve can’t remember a time where I’ve eaten a chilled soup before. With this one I sat and tasted a bunch of veggies blended together and it was good. But once I had chips with it that basically set it off for me. Chips go PERFECT with the soup if you’d ask me.
The bar here is DEEP! they have over 40+ beers and wines. So you just sit there and fall in love with this cute little tapas bar. Service was great as well. The servers are just busting their butts to get to everyone’s needs.
I’ll say this was my first time but it will not be my last. I have to try more and more of their great dishes.