El Pulpo & Tapas Bar

I love coming here! Food and service couldn’t be better. It’s a bit hidden but that’s okay with me because then it would be super crowded like all the other restaurants in Middletown.

I love this place. The food is awesome and ambiance is elegant. We came here for my husband’s birthday and had a very festive, delicious dinner. Highly recommend!

Awesome service! Awesome food!
We had girls night here and it was SO fun. There were a ton of food options. The bread was fresh and hot.
The apps were delicious. The main courses were outstanding.
I had the scallop and lobster dinner. Definitely come back.

I’m sad to do this but I had such a terrible experience this last trip on a Friday night. The service was terrible! We had to ask for menus and then wait and wait and wait to order drinks. That seemed to be the theme of the night… we had to ask for bread when all the tables around us kept getting served. Then no one came to take our order for at least 20 minutes. We ordered the fruit and cheese plate to start and it was literally three smears of jelly and six tiny pieces of cheese, totally not worth the price. My $ 10 apple salad was a handful of lettuce with some pine nuts dragged through it– also not worth the price.
Dinner finally came about an hour later and also had super small portions for how much it cost. I ordered the chicken which I’ve had there before and it was about half the size it’s been in the past. After we finished eating we sat staring at the dirty dishes for at least half an hour and asked four passing people for a check which took at least another 20+ minutes.
I think what really ruined the evening for me was it was my birthday. We had a balloon at the table too so it was obvious and not one person went out of their way for us. I swear they ignored our table actually. In the end we left without even having a birthday dessert because we had already been there for almost 2.5 hours and we were sick of being ignored. Who needs cake on their birthday anyway? I doubt I’ll be going back anytime soon to pay a fortune to be ignored.

loved the deck atmosphere on a warm September evening. Excellent Malbec, appetizer of Portabella and avacado, calamari. Dinners were scrumptious seafood paella and sea scallops. Highly recommended!
Came again in May, beautiful views, excellent wine and great food!

Delicious food! Last time we had dinner here, my husband and I shared some tapas and one entrée. It turned out to be the perfect amount of food! Each dish is as pretty as it is tasty. Our entrée came with a risotto that had us swooning, but every bite of each dish was delicious.
There are so many dishes here to choose from, it can be really hard to narrow down your order. El Pulpo is the kind of place you want to visit with a few people so you have a good excuse to order several items to share. The service is good, but on a busy night the food can be very slow to get to the table. Lunch is nice and quiet with faster service.

Always a good time here. Awesome service! Great food! Cool specials. What else can a person ask for?

My mom and i came here on a Monday night and got the prix fix menu (prix fix is only on Monday and Tuesdays). It was the smart choice to make seeing that it was $ 20 and it would save us the woes of having to pick from an extensive menu.
1) arugula salad, grilled salmon and flan
2) crab cake, paella and profiterole
I liked the arugula salad more so than the crab cake (have never been a fan of crab cakes in general… but my mom liked it so i guess it wasnt too bad). The salad was nice and fresh, which was good to kick the meal off. Also, one of the wait staff mentioned to us when ordering that they were out of arugula that night and that they would sub the arugula for mixed greens for the salad. But the plate clearly came out with arugula! I dont know what’s going on. he told that to another table as well but they had arugula on their plate too. Was he confused?
The salmon was a nice medium rare-​medium and my paella was yummy as well. Desserts were good too — i would say go for the profiterole rather than the flan.
Only complain was that I left half of my paella and told the wait staff that I wanted it to go. She said ok, took it back to the kitchen and when she didn’t come out with my brown bag in the next 10 minutes, we suspected something was up. We called her over and asked her to check on it… she went back to the kitchen and came on back saying that they had dumped it in the trash. I told her that I specifically saved the paella for my lunch tomorrow and whether she could get the chefs to make a new one (with no meat and just solely vegetables) She said ok, but she would have to charge us for a new paella… um what?! We were horrified by that reply because it was clearly their mistake — she insisted that she had left it there on the counter and that it WASN’T her fault that it got thrown out. Again… what?! We asked to speak to the manager and it seemed like she got frightened or something because the manager never came back to us and 5 magical minutes later, she appeared with my brown bag of paella. I opened it up and it seemed like it was the same exact one that got «thrown out» because there wasn’t any meat in it (I picked out the meat when i was eating it that night), but she claimed that this was a new batch that she asked the chef to cook up with no meat in it because i requested that.
Honestly, I don’t know what happened and whether they picked it out of the garbage or honest to God cooked up a new half portion of paella with no meat. I am dumbfounded.
Other than that horrible note to end the meal, food was OK.

Checked out Unilocal,looked at reviews and decided on El Pulpo. Looked for 386 Main Street quite some time. Restaurant in the Marketplace Mall.
Pleasant surprise. Excellent food and staff. Organic Shrimp special, Beet Salad, Pork with cheese and peppers, Pear salad, all awesome. Wine reasonable. Hospitality as it should be. Really enjoyed
El Pulpo.

Like Arnold Schwarzenegger said, «I’ll be back.» Terrific first experience here, I was by my lonesome so I skipped the Tapas and had their Prix Fix menu: arugula salad, paella, and flan for dessert, for $ 20 (Mon & Tues only). Excellent value.
Hopefully I can bring a gang of friends next time and do the tapas thing.
Atmosphere is casual, but a nice casual, not gritty at all. Located in the back of the mall on Main, you’re better off parking in the lot behind Main St than trying to find street parking.
Food was terrific, and like I said, I’ll be back!

Standout food.
I’ve eaten here 3 times and found every dish to be delicious and flawless. I’ve only had tapas and I dont drink so I cannot rate the wine/​liquor or the entrees. All the tapas I tasted were fresh, seasoned with interesting flavors and sauces, and well balanced in tastes and textures.
The service was very friendly.
Décor is a bit sparse and generic but its very clean and I prefer the spareness compared to cluttery décor of other restaursnts that can be overstimulating. Regardless the food is top notch.
I will definitely return.

A friend and I decided to meet for lunch and were pleasantly surprised. This restaurant is truly one that everyone must try. If you’re not familiar with the area be sure to call ahead and get directions. The atmosphere and menu was much more upscale than anticipated but we went during the middle of the week at lunchtime and found that the service and food were amazing.
Our waiter took good care of us providing us with warm tea and honey to start and got us going with the wonderful artisan salad and soup. The artisan salad was simply wonderful and included greens, tomatoes, fresh mozzarella and was topped with an excellent dressing. It was perfect for a light lunchtime menu!

Nice place! Not inexpensive at all. I didn’t want to pay $ 30.00 for sea bass or anything for that price. I settled on chicken which was good. A tad salty but not bad. Husband had some sort of fish touching other fish thing. He didn’t care for it.
Price Edward island mussels were delish
Butternut squash salad to die for
Bread and oil was great
Artichoke appetizer was delicious also.
Service was impeccable
I gave it 4 stars only because we both didn’t live our meals. Next time tapas only for us. Other folks may love the dinner entrees.

Tapas, Tapas, I can’t stop-​AHH,
Fill me up until I pop-​ah,
From the bottom to the top-​ah,
I was so happy I sang MMM-​bop-​ah.
El Pulpo translates into «The Octopus» in case you were wondering… because I was… and I had to Google to be sure I wasn’t going to somewhere called «The Pulp».
There were no beers on the drink menu (Maybe I had to ask?). I got a cocktail instead, which was very strong but kind of just tasted like watered-​down bourbon.
We did, however, get great service and a good meal. We didn’t try any entrees, but we did try five different tapas. They were priced between $ 8 and $ 11 each, so it was easy to try a bunch without spending way too much. All of them were great except the chorizo and fig dish. The chorizo wasn’t spicy at all and I didn’t like the overall flavor combo. My favorite was the goat cheese, which was served over a thick «tomato soup» and served with a couple pieces of pesto-​covered bread. I had to grab a few extra pieces of bread from the waiter to be able to soak up the entire dish. I was not going to leave one drop behind!
The waiter was very amiable and attentive. He brought two tapas over at a time so we wouldn’t get overwhelmed, and we didn’t have to wait more than 5 minutes between rounds.
El Pulpo prefers that you make reservations. We went around 6:15 and by the time we left 2 hours later the place was filled to capacity. Looking forward to trying out the deck when it warms up.

I have had El Pulpo on my list since the day they opened in Middletown. Friends and coworkers have had nothing but good things to say about the Southington location. I was even more excited by all of the excellent reviews for the Middletown location!
We went on Saturday ¹⁰⁄₃ and it was packed. We were able to get the very last table in the dining room. The staff were very nice and got us water and a small dish of olives right away. We picked out our drinks (a cucumber cosmo and a red sangria), which then took 20 minutes to arrive. Usually, if I order a drink first, I like it to arrive before I then place my follow up food order. That did not happen here, and then I get the anxiety of wondering if my food is actually going to come before my liquor. I’ve said it many times, it’s like restaurant management 101 to me… if you’re busy and you want to keep people happy, keep the alcohol coming fast. Then no one cares if the food takes longer, and you make more money. Win win.
Our appetizers came out and they were great! I got queso de cabra, which was described as goat cheese over marinara sauce, basil and toasted bread. It tasted more like goat cheese in a creamy tomato soup, and the basil was in the form of a pesto spread on the crostini. It was so good and I even ate up all of the «sauce» as though it was soup. My husband ordered the ensalada de calabaza, with butternut squash, arugula, walnuts, spanish cheese, cider vinaigrette. He was very happy with it.
For dinner, I ordered the paella valenciana. I had dreamed about this being a wonderful and tasty meat and fish paella dish. It was terrible. The chicken, pork and shrimp were beyond overcooked, dry and chewy. I didn’t get any sausage in mine, but did get clams, which were not shown on the menu. It was only supposed to be mussels. I don’t like either claims or mussels so was not a fan of this addition. I would have preferred the sausage. The rice was overcooked and bland. It was just not what I envisioned and certainly not something I want to try again, especially for $ 25. I am so disappointed as I was really hoping for a local fix for my paella cravings.
My husband ordered the short rib special for dinner. That was really tasty. Tender meat, good risotto on the side.
I was also disappointed that our second round of drinks didn’t come until ¾ of the way through dinner (we ordered well before dinner arrived). The table next to us complained to someone (possibly a manager) about not receiving drinks, and theirs were expedited. However, he dropped it there as I never saw him again, and certainly he did not help speed up our drinks. A manager should be proactive in trying to ensure a good experience for all guests, not just reacting to one issue and then disappearing, leaving others to suffer.
EVERY other table around us got some sort of complimentary after dinner drink served, we did not get anything. Our server did not offer us dessert. I felt very unwelcomed and unwanted through the duration of our dinner service. Given our bad experience, I’d call it inconsistent at best. I don’t know why or how the other reviewers had such good experiences here, but I’m definitely not keen on spending this much money on poor/​slow service or bad food. Maybe I’d go back for appetizers only, but probably not going back for dinner.

Wow — what a hidden gem on Main Street in Middletown! Gorgeous ambience, courteous staff, delicious food… what more can you ask for?
Myself and a friend went in for tapas and drinks and had a wonderful time. I chose the restaurant based on other Unilocal reviews, and they definitely did not disappoint! I didn’t read terribly closely, but wasn’t expecting white table cloths and relatively fancy place settings. We were pretty chatty, but the experienced wait staff were patient and let us take our time with ordering.
We weren’t interested in main dishes, just some tapas and drinks. He got a beer, I want to say Lagunitas, and I got a glorious glass of Ramon Bilbao red wine. At $ 9, it was the most expensive variety on the menu, which is amazing considering the quality and flavor.
For our tapas selections, we went with Plato de Jamon Chorizon, Piquillos Rellenos de Cordero, and Queso de Cabra. The plato de jamon was a scrumptious plate of cured meats. The chorizo was soft and fresh — something I hadn’t experienced before. It was perfectly seasoned and gorgeous with the queso de cabra. The cheese appetizer paired perfectly with the basil and olive oil dressed bread and marinara sauce. We sopped up every last bit of the sauces and cheese with lots of extra bread. The stuffed peppers were our meat selection and were a lovely combination of lamb and red pepper. Overall, the tapas were absolutely delicious.
The food, atmosphere, and experience were all fantastic. Sad I found it just before I moved!

Why isn’t this place booked up MONTHS in advance? Everything on the menu is an adventure for your taste buds, and in such a lovely setting compared to what was there when ION owned the lot.
The servers are polite, warm, and efficient-​and leave you to enjoy the meal and chat away.
What else could you ask for?

I can’t believe this place is so good and it just opened in May. It’s listed as Mediterranean food but I’d say it’s Spanish– Mediterranean. They had a special menu called «A Taste of the Suburbs,» that paired an appetizer with an entrée. I chose a tossed arugula and beet salad as my starter and spaghetti with lobster sauce with shrimp and (I can’t remember which type) white fish. It was buttery and heavy and cheesy-​delciousness. My fiancé got lamb empanadas as his app and seafood paella. The paella had shrimp, muscles and a cheesy type of rice. Everything was delicious.
It was one of those rare moment in the Connecticut year where the weather was warm enough at night but not hot either. We sat on their deck drinking a bottle of sauvigon blanc and listened to Spanish music. The waitstaff was attentive and filled out water up frequently.
I can’t wait to try their food out some other time!

Had heard very little about this restaurant but knew it was a new place to try on the Middletown restaurant scene. A great dining experience!
Offers innovative Spanish cuisine. Many choices on menu, both small plates and full entrees. Two different choices for paella, traditional and all seafood. Delicious! Also enjoyed appetizers and deserts.
For those of you who remember the space — It’s Only Natural, they have done a great job creating a fresh new atmosphere.
I would definitely recommend this new restaurant experience in Middletown, where dining choices abound.

Delicious! El Pulpo is a super cute restaurant and I really enjoyed coming. I love tapas but this time I decided to order an entrée. My partner and I got appetizers– he got the octopus salad which was absolutely beautiful. He enjoyed it but he said there was too much dressing. I didn’t try his plate but I saw there were big strips of octopus. I got the cream of asparagus soup with lobster and avocado. It tasted great, but it did look like it had truffle oil on top. I am one of the few people who dislike truffle oil (the smell bothers me the most) so while I still enjoyed my soup, the smell was a little off.
Our entrée we split paella! It came with a lot of seafood, clams, mussels, shrimp, fish, and ½ lobster. It was delicious and the rice was cooked perfectly.
I also got the white sangria which was delicious — not too sweet but sweet enough. El Pulpo also gives you a nightcap at the end of your meal — a small sweet rum cream drink. It was delicious!
I can’t wait to come back and try more.