La Cruz

We were home in Poole from London with Friends and Decided to give La Cruz a go.
The five of us arrived to smiling faces and an already busy restaurant. The atmosphere in the restaurant was good and the staff were ever-​present without hovering at the table waiting!
We settled on some prosecco to start while we decided on the food. The menu was good, enough to give variety but not enough you cant make up your mind. A really nice surprise was the amuse bouche which was a slice of pear, blue vinney, walnut & a tiny bit of salad. It was a great flavour to start our meal with and defiantly set the pace for the meal. We ordered some excellent salads with the blue vinney salad standing out and the moules were well received. A bottle of Beaujolais and a white later the mains were brilliant with the pork fillet cooked superbly, the veggie burger devoured, some amazing fish and prawns the size you rarely see in the uk!
The overall experience was great and the staff and the food both contributed to this. The bill was great value for 5 people with 3 bottles, starters, mains, deserts and Coffees was about £36 per head and for the quality of food we devoured it was a bargain!

Whilst there have been some poor reviews of La Cruz in recent months, things seem to have turned a corner with the introduction of «Tim’s Kitchen». Rather than the tapas selection served previously, the menu now caters for much broader tastes (with a slight lean towards seafood perhaps).
We were warmly welcomed upon arrival and shown to our table. The premises is split into two distinct sections, with the bar and a few tables in one half and pure dining in the other. The décor is modern and stylish whilst maintaining some degree of character. We learnt that the restaurant was fully-​booked, so I enquired as to whether there were two sittings (and if we’d be rushed out). Thankfully they will only book one sitting per table per night, so your table is yours as long as you want it.
The wine menu was perfectly acceptable, offering a range between around £13−20 per bottle.
The menu offered a fantastic selection and was nicely complemented by the specials. Once ordered, we were treated to a complimentary amuse bouche of smoked haddock, potato and cream (delicious) before the food arrived. I won’t go into vast detail about the food, but safe to say it was fantastic. The presentation was lovely, the flavours complex and there were sated grins from both sides of the table.
The service was friendly and welcoming, the atmosphere was cozy and warm and the night genuinely couldn’t have been better. We’ll be returning.

Time of visit 27−07−10 early eve. So happy to dicover this restaurant. Very very disappointing all round. My girlfriend and I visited with high hopes as we both love Tapas and thought we could use this on a regular basis — we had recently moved to the area, and only a few weeks ago been treated to a lovely meal in a Tapas bar in Southampton… We had no idea that our plans would be ruined by a very bad first experience. The pros: The design and ambience is very pleasing and although hugely traditional, had a good Spanish twist for the area, greeted warmly and treated to olives shortly after we were shown to our table. One of the dishes we tried we had was the ‘smoked’ chicken which had a lovely aroma, this is where the pros end. The cons: Smoked chicken was actually very bland and not pleasing to look at, the ‘salsa’ was no attempt to be salsa — simply chopped tomatoes complete with watery base and a handy chilli grinder. The watery base was also apparent in the Lambs kidneys and there looked to be no attempt made to reduce the sauce to suite the strong flavour of a lambs kidney. The 2 cheeses of the ‘Cheese variety tapa was (although tasty — manchego I think?) very sparse. The side salad was straight out a supermarket bag with very cheap balsamic vinegar dribbled over. Oh, and there was a long dark hair on the chicken… so doubt the cleanliness?
There was another couple in the restaurant who seemed to having a nice time so my GF spoke to the waitress around the corner so as not to disturb the other diners. The waitress then cam back to the table so the other diners could hear??? I really expected a manager (who was behind the bar serving loudly swearing local at the time???) at least to visit us after he had greeted us at the start, but he couldn’t even be bothered and simply instructed the waitress to come back and forth to sort out the complaint — pathetic. The food bill was wiped as if to say — «we know we are conning people, now get out» and when we walked past the manager on our way out. No attempt to regain our custom was even attempted???