Dionika

I’m not sure how I got to the age of 25 without having had a Tapas experience but Dionika was certainly a good place to start and it’s definately put me on a mission to expand my Tapas repertoire!
I went there with 7 other friends on a Saturday evening and it was nicely decorated with plenty of welcoming staff but you could have heard the tumbleweed roll by when we went in.
I’m told this place has been around for a long time but given that we were the only diners there when we arrived and the prices were very reasonable I have no idea how they are making their money. We were there for a good couple of hours and only one other table was occupied during that time. This is quite nice if you are a large group of tapas novices who require a wee bit of extra attention from the staff and want to have a good blether with each other but it must be a bit awkward if you go with a partner and feel that your every word can be heard.
It’s a shame that Dionika is lacking in patrons to bring in a bit of atmosphere because the food is delicious, varied, fun and really good value for money. Any place that can make anchovies taste good deserve some recognition in my book. The staff indulged our group when we ordered a single portion of fried milk out of curiosity (still undecided on this wierd custardy creation).
I’d like to add that I was impressed by the nice, fluffy towel in the ladies loo. This might sound unhygienic but given the limited number of users it was actually a nice touch!

Take 8 hungry Unilocalers, a miserable winter’s night, and Dionika and you’ve got quite a nice mix of «om nom nom», «more wine please» and general all-​round fun.
One thing is for sure — tapas is a sociable food. So big thumbs up to Emily V. for suggesting we all get tapas here. Whilst there was some cagey tactics at getting the last piece of chorizo or chicken wings, all the food was eaten. Nom.
Dionika is slightly out of the way, which perhaps explains why it was empty except for our table. And only two other tables came in that night. I’ve heard, from Emily V., this is common.
It’s bright, warm and fun inside and appears to be more traditionally Spanish than the more main stream «La Tasca» and the like. So why the 3*s?
Well, they didn’t have the main chicken dish on the menu that we were all wanting. Especially poor Chris M. who doesn’t like chorizo (there’s a story behind that one), aubergine, mushrooms, or pretty much anything else we ordered… Ando n a Saturday night, when as previously mentioned, the place was empty. So it seems they just hadn’t stocked up or prepped properly.
And the food was… so-​so. It felt a little ‘old’ and boring, as if the chef was used to just dolling out the same thing night after night and wasn’t particularly passionate about it. Spanish /​mediterranean cuisine is one of my all-​time favourites, and the raw ingredients are so delicious it’s hard to go wrong. But it was a little underwhelming. And a little too greasy /​oily/​cheesy /​deepfriend. Almost every dish had a layer of visible grease.
It also took us a while to get our bill. The waiters seemed a little laxidaisacal and uninterested (again, despite that there were more waiters than full tables).
It felt as though Dionika had a self-​conscious awareness at how old, tired and empty it normally is and as such the food, staff, and general atmosphere had lulled.
It would be nice to bring a family here, or a larger table as we did precisely for the sociable aspect of Spanish food. Just make sure and bring the atmosphere too.

I struggled with the decision of four of five stars … I decided to go with four because while I LOVED the food here, it fell down in one or two places.
I went here with my man this past summer, when is was so excruciatingly hot (remember that weekend?) that we spent most of our time laying around complaining, and drinking cold beer. My guy went for a meal with one of his buddies here a couple of weeks prior and raved about it so much that I forced him to take me one evening when we were able to peel ourselves off the floor.
He reported that the beers were quite pricey so we opted for a bottle of white wine. The white wine selection was pretty limited and not cheap (we ordered the cheapest bottle at something like £15.00), and I regret to say that we were most assuredly not impressed with our choice.
Our food, however, more than made up for it. I love tapas because I love variety. We ordered three or four dishes each and enjoyed every bite. I would love to go into detail but have a memory like a sieve and can’t remember what we ordered off the top of my head. I would be pretty confident, though, that anything you order here will be grat.
The problem with Dionika is that no one ever goes here. I honestly don’t know how they survive. I have NEVER seen it full. It’s one of those things where people don’t go there because it’s always empty, but of course it’s always empty because no one goes there.
We keep wanting to go back but walk by and it’s so dead that we decide to go somewhere else. I think maybe everyone who likes this place need to agree on a night to go there so we can have great food AND good atmosphere!
One other oddity — at the end of our meal the owner/​chef came out and made his chatty round of the dining room (all three tables). He was very spirited and certainly loves his restaurant. He was a bit eccentric, but gave us complimentary booze so our hearts were won over.
Edit: I forgot to mention that the meal (including 15 pounds for a bottle of wine) was 40 pounds. I thought it was a major bargain.

I find Dionika kind of hard to place: is it a bar, a deli or a restaurant? The answer is all of the above. The name suggests to me Greek or Mediterranean connections, but it is in fact Basque (a northern region in Spain). Glad we got that cleared up…
The restaurant serves up all manner of delicious tapas nibbly bits as well as more substantial dishes like paella and lobster; fresh fish is a bit of a speciality. Even if you just pop in for a glass of wine, you are provided with a small dish of gloriously fat and tasty olives. The delicatessen is a bit on the pricey side, but the food is damn fine and there’s nowhere else in Edinburgh that sells such a good selection of hams and chorizos. It’s all well worth going down to Canonmills for.