Delightful tapas! Short menu plus a special option in lively, modern surroundings. Good service and reasonable value for quality food. After lunch, take in the Spanish Gallery or stroll around the walled garden at the Palace.
Very good Tapas restaurant that is on the side of the Spanish Gallery in Bishop Auckland market place. Good selection of wines and cocktails. Menu has 4 items in each section which makes easy to choose what you want. I would highly recommend a visit if you are in the area, I would advise pre booking as it can get very busy at times and walk ins were not able to get a table.
Glorious! Fabulous food - the chorizo and black pudding is superb - charming and super speedy service, and a really remarkably good house white. The only tiny thing they could improve is the lighting - it’s a little bright and “cold” for an autumn evening - but this is trivial when everything else is so lovely. Five stars!
This was our first visit. The food was excellent - we loved every dish we tried. And the wine was very good too. We’ll definitely go back again.
Delicious food, we left feeling very happy. Very reasonable prices for food that has so much flavour. Also loved how different the menu was. The staff were lovely and friendly. We will definitely be visiting again.
Had lunch here and ordered several dishes. Chorizo and morcilla, chicken skewers, croquettes, calamari, mixed carrots and maybe another - can't remember - all were delicious. We had crema Catalan which was wonderful. The staff were friendly. Would return if I was ever up there again
We've eaten here several times now since the venue opened. We love how the menu varies on each occasion and is usually very tasty although there is a tendency for variable seasoning and some dishes can be a bit overcooked for our liking.
It is definitely the best tapas we have tasted outside of Spain, reasonably priced and delivered with good service. Definitely recommended.
Visited El Castillo for the first time. We had lovely food, great service and a really enjoyable experience.
The menu was great, the size of the portions were excellent and I couldn’t fault the quality.
The staff were super, however the only fault I would mention is that El Castillo’s payment system stopped me from leaving a tip when I paid electronically, I had no cash on me so my sincere apologies to the staff. Can I suggest the owners/managers rectify this.
Overall we had a great night and will definitely eat here again.
Today we had a delicious lunch at El Castillo tapas restaurant. All the tapas we ordered were delicious. For dessert I had the delightful almond tarta de Santiago with St James’s cross (la cruz de Santiago) on top of it. Very apt, given that Bishop Auckland is on the Camino Inglés (the English strand of the Camino de Santiago pilgrimage to Santiago de Compostela in northern Spain, which the cake is historically linked to). My friend had the Basque cheesecake, which he also enjoyed. The coffee was really good and our server Kate was friendly and professional. Highly recommended.
Food was amazing , staff were fantastic .
And a lovely atmosphere .
What a treat and different option in Bishop Auckland. The staff are fantastic, food was fantastic, atmosphere was fantastic so best get ourselves booked in again soon! Highly recommend 👌
Update!
Well, after 4 visit since my review the menu has changed! This left us receiving smaller portions and sad to say actually disappointed. Do us all a favour and go back to the old menu with everything as it was, put the price up if that's what's needed but with the new style and portion size the bill was noticeably more. The delivery of food was a little disjointed from previous experience and we did have to ask for some food which didn't come out for quite some time. Followed by a review of the bill when we got home with a third sour dough which we neither asked for or received.
Hope the feedback from customers helps.
Staff are very polite and the venue is very clean.
The food was exceptional, I wouldn't hesitate to recommend what was the best tapas experience I've had for a long time. We had 6 dishes between 2 of us in addition to olives and Padron peppers. We didn't regret any of our choices but the highlight was the chargrilled broccoli with salted almonds.
Lovely food, way better in quality than most of the standard tapas chains. Chilled atmosphere and very attentive service.
Went on 22 September. The food was exceptional. Had 5 dishes between two of us. Great vegetarian choices, each one was beautifully cooked with lots of flavours. Desserts were lovely too. Service was great. Can't wait to take people!
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