Latino

I had been going to this restaurant for many years and now will never go back. The service is very poor and the staff can be rude. This all stems from a birthday meal that I orgainised for my wife with 4 other couples. I arranged for birthday cake to be made by Latinos and brought out at the end of the meal. Which they did. Only 4 people had the cake so at the end of the meal we asked to take the remainder home. The lady in charge then told me that she assumed we did not want the cake and had given it all to her staff to eat and it was gone. Not once did they ask or inform us. We had a blazing row with them in the restaurant for over 10 minutes, it ruined the meal, which was average anyway. She did not apologise at all. We all live in Hove, none of us will ever go back and I have told plenty of people about this meal and told them not to eat there.
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Overall rating
Food 5 | Service 0 | Atmosphere 6 | Value for money 5
Monday, March 01, 2010

We wandered into Latino last night for an unplanned evening meal and we were surprised and delighted. The service was excellent (with a charming Spanish waitress). The food was very good too. I thought the fabada (white bean stew) was delicious; the fish dishes (sardines, scallops) were fresh, and well cooked. The soft, easy-drinking house red rounded it all off nicely. Overall a very pleasant evening. I'm only sorry that I have walked past the restaurant on an almost-daily basis for so long without giving it a try.
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Antony Fernandez
Overall rating
Food 8 | Service 10 | Atmosphere 9 | Value for money 9
Friday, July 03, 2009

I can't help feeling that the last few 10/10 reviews are fabricated - this restaurant just isn't that good. We visited last night and although there were no problems with the service, i must agree with Mark Rogers below about the food. We were both underwhelmed by our dinner and wished we had gone somewhere else.

We were intially served 'Tiger Bread' (who on earth invented this stuff) which was very doughy and i assume purchased from the supermarket up the road. The salad latino looked nice enough but was on the small side for the price and the dressing was creamy and tasteless. The fabada was bland; the garlic and thyme chicken (breast peices) was OK but nothing special and meatballs were very disappointing; sitting in an uninspiring tomato sauce (reminiscent of pureed tinned toms), looking suspiciously spherical and, being comprised of very finely ground meat, lacking in flavour and texture, we suspect they may have been tinned.

The restarant is nice inside, with good music, and the atmosphere was nice once it filled up a bit. However, this not compensate for the disappointing food; overall an average experience.
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Alec
Overall rating
Food 2 | Service 5 | Atmosphere 6 | Value for money 2
Saturday, April 25, 2009

Being Spanish, I tend not to eat in Spanish restaurants abroad , as they tend not to serve proper spanish food . However , I have been going to Latino for years . I tend to eat out 3 or 4 times a week for business , and I discovered Latino a few years ago , while I was living in Brighton . The food is excellent , so are the owners , and waiters . I tend to observe people all the time , and I always see the owner chatting with all the customers and making sure that everything is right.

I have moved to London , where I have been to a few of the well know spanish restaurants there , and I must say that not a single one compares to Latino .

The food is fresh , they are lots of proper Spanish tapas . The chorizo frito is excellent , pinchos , spanish omelette , and many more that cannot mention .

Everytime I go to Brighton I go to Latino , as it is one of the restaurants I miss the most in London .

I was there with some friends two weeks ago , and it delivered as usual , was I was expecting , I can not wait to go back .
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Jorge Perez Martin
Overall rating
Food 9 | Service 10 | Atmosphere 9 | Value for money 10
Monday, April 13, 2009

This restuarant is fab!! Best in Hove certainly and joint best throughout the whole of Brighton!!

And luckily, it's less than a minute away from my house!!
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Emma
Overall rating
Food 10 | Service 10 | Atmosphere 10 | Value for money 10
Tuesday, March 31, 2009

This restaurant was an absolute delight. Everything was overwhelming!! I was so surprised. I'd recommend it to everyone. It was so refreshing to find something so perfect.
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Richard Pilton
Overall rating
Food 10 | Service 10 | Atmosphere 10 | Value for money 10
Saturday, September 20, 2008

What a relief to finally try a spanish restaurant that had fresh authentic and not precooked food! I dined there last Saturday with some friends that I had not seen for 2 years, so was keen to impress with my knowledge of the spanish language and their tapas. The waiters were all spanish speaking and were very happy to put up with my pigeon spanish in my attempts at ordering.

The food was delicious and there there was an excellent choice and variety on the menu.We had a selection of tapas which were devoured by everyone, even my vegetarian friend seemed spoiled for choice, and the house red was also very good.

We were also surprised at the bill which was very reasonable for the amount we devoured.

The staff were very friendly and the owner who was also working and was an absolute delight.There is a real spanish feel to the restaurant. The atmosphere is really relaxed with latin music playing in the background. My friends were very impressed and will definitely be dining there again as will I.
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Linda Perera
Overall rating
Food 10 | Service 10 | Atmosphere 10 | Value for money 10
Tuesday, September 09, 2008

I dined at Latino with friends at the weekend and what a mistake that turned out to be. The tasteless food was over-priced and the service was very poor and as a result we were charged 10% of the bill without any warning of an included service charge.

Olives were given to us at the beginning of the meal on the understanding that they were free of charge, which of course we ended up having to pay for, twice we had to ask the waiter to bring our table some butter which of course never arrived and then one of the deserts we ordered had to be changed, and this was all topped off with then we having to wait almost 30 minutes for the bill to arrive after the restaurant owner had obviously lost our bill and had instead sent over a fabricated one with items that we hadn’t actually ordered.

By her fourth attempt and with the assistances of my friends to help edit the bill, I was told that the service charge would still stand even though I thought having to wait 30 minutes whilst their incompetent owner and staff tried to remember what we had actually ordered. However, I think the real low point of the evening came when the owner stood by our table in an irate mood, raising her voice and speaking in Spanish when only a few of us could understand her insults.

I wouldn’t recommend this restaurant to anyone and I certainly won’t be going back there again.
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Mark Rogers
Overall rating
Food 3 | Service 0 | Atmosphere 5 | Value for money 2
Monday, June 16, 2008

Always a treat, good service and the tapas is lovely - apart, somewhat mysteriously, from the chorizo which I tend to avoid. Other than that, great.
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Mark.
Wednesday, February 13, 2008

Just returned from a first time visit to Latino. It looked as if it had everything right - intimate lighting, rough-textured walls, hubbub of happy people, but in fact was hugely disappointing.

Service was almost non-existent: after waiting almost 10 minutes to be served we had to ask for attention, and when our first tapas arrived, we had to request plates off which to eat it.

Food was bland and over-priced. The tortilla and fabado were tasteless, and the boquerones were obviously straight out of a tin. When we complained about the chewy calamares our waitress made a display of feeding it to other staff before arguing with us about it. To be fair, however, we were offered a replacement dish.

I couldn't recommend the restaurant, and certainly wouldn't go there again.
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Jon B
Saturday, January 12, 2008