Review Bodega - Victoria

I recently had the pleasure of visiting La Bodega, a Spanish bar located in the heart of Victoria, and I must say it was an incredible experience. I enjoyed a delightful cheese board paired with a rich red wine, and the combination was simply perfect. The ambiance of La Bodega is captivating, creating an authentic Spanish atmosphere that immediately transports you to a different world. The dim lighting and rustic decor added to the charm of the place, making it a perfect setting for a cozy evening in the heart of Victoria. What truly stood out for me was the impeccable service. The staff at La Bodega were attentive, knowledgeable, and extremely friendly. They were more than willing to offer recommendations, ensuring that I got the best out of my visit. The cheese board was a work of art, featuring a delectable selection of cheeses that catered to various tastes, and the red wine complemented the flavors beautifully. Every bite and sip felt like a journey through the Spanish culinary landscape. La Bodega, nestled in the heart of Victoria, is unquestionably a must-visit for anyone looking to experience the essence of Spain right in the heart of this charming location. Whether you're a fan of Spanish cuisine or simply looking for a cozy place to unwind, La Bodega's combination of excellent food and outstanding service makes it a top choice. I can't wait to return for another delightful evening at this remarkable establishment.

I heard great things and decided finally to treat myself ... I was not disappointed. The house G & T was beautiful and divine! Paired with the Bay Scallop & Cod Fish Ceviche was amazing. Perfectly balanced, soft, and delicious! I will definitely be coming back!

We have been coming to Bodega about 4x a year since we moved to victoria 5 years ago. EVERY time we have had the wonderful Cami as our server. She is super great! We love the everchanging carpaccio and of course the patatas bravas! Highly recommend!

We really enjoyed the charcuterie board and grilled octopus. It was almost full and we ended up with a table right at the door which was kinda uncomfortable with all the traffic.

Can’t go wrong with a single tapas here! So delicious with very nice wines to go along with the food.

This place is awesome! Fabulous tapas, you can’t seem to go wrong with anything on the menu! Everything is perfectly curated. Beef carpaccio is love at every bite, same with gambas al ajillo. Even the baguette and the focaccia bread as sides to the meals were fresh and delicious. Portions are fair for the price. Wine list is pretty good, the few wines we had were great. Even the Sherry list is pretty good if you’re into that. Service is awesome, and finally the atmosphere is really nice. Cool lighting inside, and a beautiful open bar.

Excellent food. The soup was super good, pepper and coconut. I took the trio platter to try a little of everything. I did expect more for the price ($15) however, it was very tasty. I would recommend to just go with a full dish instead of the trio, you get more for your money. Finishing touch, a nice espresso. I will be back.

Always have a great time here! The drinks are delicious, the food is so flavourful and you can't beat the energy. There's great ambience as the lights are dim and the music is never too loud (like some other places where you can't hear your friends talking). Will be back many more times!

Ok, this place was good. Good drinks, good food, and nice environment. Had four dishes, with two of them being awesome. The grilled carrots were great as was the chicken liver mouse. The other dishes were good, just not as memorable. Well worth a visit.

We love this restaurant the best for this short trip! All foods were high quality and tasty! Won’t get too much burden since all dishes were served small plate! We love it! We tried various and they all perfectly matched with baguette! Wonderful time!

Bodega is on Trounce Alley and is right next to another tapas joint. The problem is that the other tapas bar web site was not working right so Bodega became our choice by default. This turned out to be our most memorable meal in Victoria. We started with Garlic Prawns which were perfectly cooked and swimming in amazing garlic butter. We tried to figure out how to take the garlic butter with us but the amazing tasty bread worked it out for us. Lentils, kale, mushrooms, chorizo and sherry vinegar were another delightful and healthy taste. We enjoyed their Marinated Eggplant Salad with goat cheese. Again, getting our vegetables on vacation was made possible. The Cerdo Con Atun which was pork shoulder wrapped around greens with a tuna aioli and caperberries. Everything was great but the tuna aioli was the most impressive element and something we have never tasted before. What would tapas be without Patates Bravas? This was a great version and was probably put us over the top for just a little too much food! Nicely crispy potatoes are always the keyWe were very impressed with Bodega. It was our favourite meal from this visit to V.I. Our server was so friendly and efficient (and she laughed at my jokes).!

The scallop and halibut ceviche is very good also the lamb meatballs are delish with a glass of red wine

Great happy hour ! The food and drinks are very reasonably priced, staff are friendly and attentive. We enjoyed the small tapas board and meat board. We were lucky enough to sit at the bar and watch everything being prepared. The waitress was kind enough put together some really delicious non alcoholic and tasty drinks ! Check this place out for sure !

Great ambience, great selection of wines and very enjoyable tapas. Really enjoyed the mushrooms and lentils and the clams. This is definitely a spot I will return too.

Update:<br/>They no longer serve sangrias, which in my opinion, were the best in town. Super disappointed in this menu change. How can a Spanish tapa place not make sangrias anymore. Bad move on their part.<br/>******************************************<br/>Hands down the BEST sangrias in town!! Came here for the first time for a girls' night. We had a really good time. Their pitcher of sangria wasn't watered down and the food, despite being tapas, was super filling and delicious. The place is quite small and better for small groups of friends rather than a date unless you want to be yelling at each other to be heard. Definitely recommend this place and look forward to come back.<br/><br/>

I really like it! Service is the best I've experienced:) the lady even offered us free sodas and delicious bite-sized appetizers. Food is delicate, unique and tasty! I recommend the pincho plate and the carrileras! I don't recommend the beef carpaccio which was too salty.

This place is as fake as it can get. I travel often to Spain and enjoy tapas any time of the day. The tortilla is very blend, certainly not fried in olive oil like they do in Spain. The portions are small and over priced. I sat at the bar to have a tortilla and a fino. The bartender served me the fino in a small shot glass. Seriously ? When was the last time you had wine out of a shot glass. I won't be returning.

Excellent food.  Excellent service. I dine out alone often and find many servers to forget about me. I really appreciate the service at Bodega as they don't seem to have a problem with a woman dining on her own. The food is gorgeous... love the truffle salami. Best Carpaccio in town.

Lovely food and nice to have the option to sit outside with cozy blankets but the service was too slow and we ended feeling stressed to get to a show even though we had plenty of time when we arrived.<br/>There were four of us seated at a tiny little table. It would have been much more enjoyable and practical if the food had come out gradually but it was brought out all at once making the table way overcrowded, awkward and uncomfortable. Loved the cauliflower and arugula salad and the grilled mushrooms with lentils and kale - exotic and yummy!<br/>

Nice ambiance. Lovely wine. Yummy eats. Had a great first experience here on a Monday night. Quiet and low key. Perfect for a time out from the family with a good pal.

We stopped in to Bodega last night and had a lovely meal. It was fun trying a number of different sherries and the tapas was excellent (stuffed peppers, roasted potatoes, scallop and shrimp ceviche, salted almonds).  The vibe was great, with good music, and the service attentive and very professional.  It was a real delight and we look forward to returning.

Delicious food and good service. Don't order the zucchini carpaccio, what a waste of money. Everything else was well worth it though! Will be going back soon to try more dishes

Pleasant surprise.. Just stumbled upon this place. Thoroughly impressed. Great food and vibe.

Closest I've found to authentic Spanish tapa outside of Spain! Great service, wine selection and foodies delight!

Excellent atmosphere, food, drinks and service! Our server, Colin, was engaging and never let our glasses get empty. We ordered the Bodega Board, which was delicious. The only thing that would have made it better was maybe including a couple more cheese selections. The olives were to die for! If nothing else I would go back just to gorge myself on those olives!! I'm definitely coming back!!

Fennel and Juniper Porchetta. Fennel and juniper porchetta<br/><br/><br/>-----14 Dec, 2014-----<br/><br/>Mixed Pincho Plate. Mixed pincho plate<br/><br/><br/>-----14 Dec, 2014-----<br/><br/>Octopus Carpaccio. Octopus carpaccio<br/><br/><br/>-----14 Dec, 2014-----<br/><br/>Stuffed Peppers. Tuna anchovy stuffed peppers

Great service, food, and atmosphere!. As a regular at the Tapa Bar next door, I decided to bring my coworker for some wine and a bite to eat at Bodega on a Thursday night. We got a lovely table by the window (they're all lovely tables - it's a very intimate room) and we began our evening with a glass of sherry. Our server was incredibly attentive and approachable, and did her best to answer all of our questions about food and alcohol. We enjoyed a bottle of Rioja and took our time with plates, my favourite being the Octopus carpaccio (feel free to pair it with something more suited to seafood if you choose to be particular). I believe with an open mind and very realistic expectations Bodega will be just as successful as the Tapa Bar. As with all new restaurants there might be a few kinks that need to be worked out, but I am happy to report that I will be visiting the restaurant many more times in the near future.

Nice ambience - awful menu. Popped in for a glass of wine and a quick bite while shopping downtown - I frequent the Tapas Bar just next door and so I'd thought to give this place a try since it's the same owner. The kwine choice was just ok - it wasn't phenomenal as the name suggests, I guess once you've been to the Canlis it's hard to compare anything else.I ordered the scallops and prawn dish, not realizing it wasn't a cooked dish. It was served cold and half raw (think sashimi) in chilled lime - blechy - it was gross, and the menu was very limited. The waiter did not seem to know much about wines, so I ended up choosing my own. All in all. I was not impressed, I wish I had just gone to Tapas Bar as was my initial intent.

I love this place! Ambiance, food, cocktails & service! A nice intimate experience with a non pretentious attitude. The tapas size are perfect, I believe in really savoring & enjoying different dishes & due to the size of Tapas I can most definitely do that by ordering a few items @ a time, I've come here from the beginning & enjoy everything on the menu as well as te features. A great wine selection & of course their signature cocktails! Keep it up Bodega!

Great Tapas and wine selection. Been going to Bodega since it opened and it just keeps getting better every time. The service is exceptional and the atmosphere is great.

We had fantastic service, and the food was amazing! This is a tapas bar, so yes you do pay more because no one item off the menu is enough food. That said, everything on the menu is fantastic, so you'll want to order more than you can eat. <br/><br/>Thank you to our servers, you were great!

Decent Food, Terrible Service. This was our first time trying out this place. The service was extremely slow to begin with. Our server was impatient. Grabbed our food order and ran away with our menus before we could order the rest of our food. When then had to wait for her to return (15min) tell he we wanted to order more food. She nodded and walked away. Not bothering to return with our menus. We then wanted to order drinks as she never gave us a chance. So had to wait an additional 20 minutes before we could ask for a single beer each. Every time we wanted something we had to wave her down, start saying something and attempt to blurt it out because she was already moving away. Whenever she came to quality check she spoke with a condescending tone. "How's the food? Heaven! I know!". I was astonished by how rude the server was to the table. She kept grabbing our plates to rearrange the food, though often times she was moving it away from the person who was attempting to eat it. It came to the point when one of my table members snapped to please just let it be. <br/>I myself am I server and was appalled by how rude and assuming she was to us. It ruined the entire experience. We are probably not going to return unless the business seriously reconsiders re-training or to re-hire.

Nice atmosphere, but overpriced for meagre portions. The decor is beautiful, the food is tasty, and the wine selection is good, however, the food portion for the price was terrible. <br/>$6 for a tiny saucer (diameter of about 2") of mixed olives. <br/>$12 for a cheese plate with 3 cheeses but the amount of cheese seemed like only 10g each.<br/>And then the kicker, the bread was stale.<br/><br/>I'd go back for a drink, but probably will never eat there again. If I want tapas, I'd head next door to the Tapa Bar (also same owner).