Ferry Good Effort
Pro A good value meal.
Con Bread products slightly below par.
Pay
El Ferry has been replaced at this location by another restaurant.
€€
Per Person
3 course brunch, with coffee and mimosa/buck's fizz or cava; €16. Menu is here.
Booking strongly recommended. Time limits are not attached.
Find
Website Click
Access Stepfree.
In Short
Hopes? The menu's not over selling it.
Reality? A rewarding, fairly easy-going experience.
First Impressions? An odd mix of the traditional and the modern.
A USP? A long menu at the price.
The food in three words? Serious, substantial, well-cooked.
Can they get the staff? Four on front of house.
Service with a smile? Some nice touches.
Friend friendly? Yep, the range is good.
Rating for dating? Quirky enough for talking points.
Tip? 5%
Change one thing? "Home fries" need thinking about.
Going back? Very probably.
Compare & Contrast
Maricastaña
In Pictures
On Google Images
What's the story?
El Ferry does a brunch without time limits, with tidy service and a decent range of choices.
Perhaps we shouldn't publish this review and keep the place for ourselves. It's not perfect, but the good news is that tweaking a few details would move this, without hesitation, into the excellent bracket. It's already a very enjoyable and pleasingly pretension-free experience.
Did we start with Buck's Fizz? This is no land of make believe. The camera never lies;
Food service kicks off with a pastry basket. Nice to have warmed up mini croissants and pans aux chocolat and some - tiny - muffins are welcome too, but warmed up they were too dry and crumbly. And a second chocolate-free option would be good. A bit of blueberry or fruit of the forest perhaps?
There's a battery of main courses on the menu, and our choices of the day - eggs and entrecot,
which was a filling and hefty dish, although the smallish entrecote was disguised under the cackleberries rather smartly. Good cooking here, and substantial dish. It's not subtle, it's not fine dining, but it's good feeding. Essential info: the thing that looks like nice slice of creamy avocado? Some kind of water melon doing an impression. Hipster expectations, you have been managed.
Main number 2 was the brunch burger, complete with stylish red and white presentation.
The only issue here, as with the entrecot were the home fries - one of three spud options They do say whereever you wander, there's no place like home. Well, these spuds supposedly came from home but they're nothing like any we've had in North America. They don't seem fried so much as perhaps pressure cooked until they're soft and almost mashed. Tasty? Yes. it's a good portion on both dishes. But fries? Not likely. They're a lot closer to patatas a la pobre, which would be a perfectly fine thing to serve and not worry about renaming.
Desserts? El Ferry scores again as this means the second of two full-scale hot dishes from a shortish but interesting list. And here's the french toast. It's fresh, It's buttery. Emmanuel Macron would probably not turn down its silky advances. But then recent events don't suggest he's as choosy as he might be, so maybe not the best recommendation. It's got a couple of raspberries on it, but there's no mucking about with modernisation or random added flavours. It's PDG.
Pro A good value meal.
Con Bread products slightly below par.
Pay
El Ferry has been replaced at this location by another restaurant.
€€
Per Person
3 course brunch, with coffee and mimosa/buck's fizz or cava; €16. Menu is here.
Booking strongly recommended. Time limits are not attached.
Find
Website Click
Access Stepfree.
In Short
Hopes? The menu's not over selling it.
Reality? A rewarding, fairly easy-going experience.
First Impressions? An odd mix of the traditional and the modern.
A USP? A long menu at the price.
The food in three words? Serious, substantial, well-cooked.
Can they get the staff? Four on front of house.
Service with a smile? Some nice touches.
Friend friendly? Yep, the range is good.
Rating for dating? Quirky enough for talking points.
Tip? 5%
Change one thing? "Home fries" need thinking about.
Going back? Very probably.
Compare & Contrast
Maricastaña
In Pictures
On Google Images
What's the story?
El Ferry does a brunch without time limits, with tidy service and a decent range of choices.
Perhaps we shouldn't publish this review and keep the place for ourselves. It's not perfect, but the good news is that tweaking a few details would move this, without hesitation, into the excellent bracket. It's already a very enjoyable and pleasingly pretension-free experience.
Did we start with Buck's Fizz? This is no land of make believe. The camera never lies;
Food service kicks off with a pastry basket. Nice to have warmed up mini croissants and pans aux chocolat and some - tiny - muffins are welcome too, but warmed up they were too dry and crumbly. And a second chocolate-free option would be good. A bit of blueberry or fruit of the forest perhaps?
There's a battery of main courses on the menu, and our choices of the day - eggs and entrecot,
which was a filling and hefty dish, although the smallish entrecote was disguised under the cackleberries rather smartly. Good cooking here, and substantial dish. It's not subtle, it's not fine dining, but it's good feeding. Essential info: the thing that looks like nice slice of creamy avocado? Some kind of water melon doing an impression. Hipster expectations, you have been managed.
Main number 2 was the brunch burger, complete with stylish red and white presentation.
The only issue here, as with the entrecot were the home fries - one of three spud options They do say whereever you wander, there's no place like home. Well, these spuds supposedly came from home but they're nothing like any we've had in North America. They don't seem fried so much as perhaps pressure cooked until they're soft and almost mashed. Tasty? Yes. it's a good portion on both dishes. But fries? Not likely. They're a lot closer to patatas a la pobre, which would be a perfectly fine thing to serve and not worry about renaming.
Desserts? El Ferry scores again as this means the second of two full-scale hot dishes from a shortish but interesting list. And here's the french toast. It's fresh, It's buttery. Emmanuel Macron would probably not turn down its silky advances. But then recent events don't suggest he's as choosy as he might be, so maybe not the best recommendation. It's got a couple of raspberries on it, but there's no mucking about with modernisation or random added flavours. It's PDG.
A trio of tortitas/pancakes was the other choice, with blueberries inside and a blueberry syrup to drizzle. A dish that even in the glory days of the VIPs chocolate version has never been my cup of tea, but three of them certainly make a filling - if slightly doughy - finish. I'd swap the swirl of awful Madrid plastifoamcream for a scoop of any kind of vanilla icecream, please.
So we're impressed. And full. But shall we be really picky? Yes. You're paying us for it. Well you're not. But it's all part of the service.Value for money, see.
Don't warm the muffins. Some slightly bigger croissants are easily findable. Classic toast and marmalade would be a welcome and fun option on the dessert list. - or maybe an alternative to the pastry basket. This is a rare brunch that has not a trace of a yoghurt or granola dish on its menu, and that feels like a bit of a missed opportunity.
Don't warm the muffins. Some slightly bigger croissants are easily findable. Classic toast and marmalade would be a welcome and fun option on the dessert list. - or maybe an alternative to the pastry basket. This is a rare brunch that has not a trace of a yoghurt or granola dish on its menu, and that feels like a bit of a missed opportunity.
Service is good, although eating at this time on a Sunday means, maybe inevitably, at certain moments some of the staff looked like they could use a hefty brunch themselves. As ever, details are the key, and here they were present, rather than missed. Well done. Water offered around without anyone asking, a friendly goodbye from the owner as we left. Very welcome, very good.
We're very pleased with our choice and it'll be on the list next time we need something different of a Sunday.
Try it.
Try it.