Canas y Tapas

My flatmates and I came here with a Groupon deal advertised as «all you can eat tapas.» The times you can use it are actually quite flexible, with the only real restriction being dinner time on Friday and Saturday. But, as it typically goes with Groupons, there were a lot more rules attached upon arrival. We were told that we had to order olives and bread with olive oil & vinegar, despite the fact that we didn’t want olives and the olive oil & vinegar was of truly, dreadful quality. The vinegar was quite viscous for some reason, and the olive oil came out of a tiny bottle and was rather tasteless. After that, we had to order from the section featuring sautéed egg and potatoes, accompanied with a choice of meat. We got the one with beef tenderloin steak strips, but it was rather tough and overcooked, and I felt like we were just getting stuffed with potatoes to make us full.
After all that, we were permitted to order other dishes, though for some reason it was 3 at a time when it was 2 of us, and then when my 3^rd flatmate joined, we were permitted to order 6 at a time. I didn’t think that math made a lot of sense, given that we had 3 Groupons between us, and we should have been allowed to order either 3 at a time, or 9 if it was 3 per Groupon. Of the seafood, we got the octopus, chopitos (fried baby squid), and the mussels. We also got Spanish omelette with Iberian ham, albondigas meatballs, the grilled wild mushrooms, and padron peppers. We attempted to order croquettes as well, but by the end of the meal, the service was terrible and the staff was blatantly ignoring our requests and forgetting our orders (it took me about 3 tries to get a glass of water). Paella and jamon and cheese all cost extra.
Of the food, I thought the chopitos were really good, and the octopus was also a standout. It was served with a potato purée and the plating made it much more impressive than the other rather casual fare. The rest of the dishes we ordered were quite decent, though the most disappointing was the albondigas, which resembled Ikea meatballs, prepackaged and processed, rather than something that had been made out of freshly ground meat. I thought we did a reasonable job tackling the menu, and were all quite full at the end. Service really ruined the experience for me, and at the end, the staff told us that it had been «crazy busy,» despite multiple tables around us that had been empty all night. I would rather go to La Farola and have a more upscale and civilised meal rather than the mayhem that was Canas y Tapas.

Style over substance. Clutching at the ceiling of mediocrity. Get the picture?
The place was buzzing on this balmy Saturday night, and having just come from seeing an amazing Flamenco show at nearby Sadler’s Wells, we thought we’d continue the theme.
Instead I was insulted by being served THE WORST tapas I’ve had in London. There is very little Spanish authenticity about this place, except for some signs in Spanish and waitresses with Spanish accents.
The food appeared to be some bizarre British take on tapas; quite unpalatable.
Firstly, the food is served in trendy chip baskets. That was ok for the pobalno peppers, especially as they were way too oily and needed the paper in the baskets to save them from disintegrating. But not for the patatas bravas… which appeared to be steamed then fried. The result was a flaccid portion of small potato chunks, violated by some industrial tasting orange chilli sauce.
Calamari: the rubbery rings were coated in tasteless batter.
Egg, mushroom & potato dish: oyster mushrooms… really? At least it was served in a small iron dish. But It appeared and tasted like a leftover from a greasy spoon fry up, provided at an absurdly inflated price.
All in all, 5 dishes and 2 beers for £45.
Adiós.

Went here today and was unimpressed. We ordered the iberico ham, cheese selection, calamari, green peppers and croquettes. The croquettes were heavy and the flavors felt off. The calamari was rubbery and massive pieces that were unappetizing. With 2 glass of wine the bill was close to £70. The price, mediocre food and the added £7 gratuity for subpar service means I won’t be back.

5 stars! Amazing and real Spanish food for reasonable price with good and fast service. I strongly recommend this restaurant.

I enjoyed my visit to Canas y Tapas very much. We were greeted politely with a smile at the door and got taken to our table right away even though we were a little early (we had a reservation) — I liked that. After we were seated, to the nicest table at the restaurant by the way, the waitress came around and the service was top notch all night long! We started out with ordering a pitcher of Sangría (you can choose either red or white wine) which was so good we ended up ordering another pitcher later on. For food we decided to go with the sharing tapas as they are clearly the most popular thing on the menu and the selection looked really delicious. We were instructed that 3 – 4 tapas should be enough to share. I’d say 4 is good, but if you are really hungry maybe go for 5. We ordered four different seafood tapas to share and it was totally enough food for us. I especially enjoyed the Gambas al Ajillo which was peeled prawns in olive oil, a lot of garlic, dried chilli and parsley, served with bread. The mussels were a bit disappointing though. To finish we ordered some traditional Churros with chocolate sauce, yum: P
So for dinner I can recommend the place for sure, but I was quite surprised that around 10 pm the upstairs dining area (where the bar is and where we were seated) was transformed into a dance floor and from nowhere a DJ appeares and the noise level goes trough the roof. This was a Friday night, so not sure if this happens every day or not. Also the music was pretty horrid to be honest — very sort of appealing to a bit more older crowd you know. But as soon as they started playing music the dance floor was flooded with people, so I guess they enjoyed it. Me personally would go somewhere else to dance ;)