Stylish space and Spanish tapas in the Marina.

by Patrick Heig

This modern Spanish tapas bar gets the young stilettoed and stylish crowd indigenous to the area as well as dedicated foodies you don't normally find in the Marina. Chocolate brown, caramel and red walls accented by a copper bar frame chatty groups lounging on oxblood leather banquettes and couples at the two-top tables by the streetside windows. The small plates--house-made wild boar chorizo inside bacon-wrapped Medjool dates, and the famous (don't miss them) chickpea croquettes, and a flavorful salchichón studded with creamy chunks of fat--are difficult to share, though that has more to do with delicious than with size of portion. Ace bartender Brooke Arthur's specialty cocktails are a smash-hit as well, though they tend to cause crowds to swell, which is Laiola's main weakness, although it's not usually considered one in a neighborhood where the most popular restaurants have bar-like scenes during the dinner hour.

02/20/09

Immune to a Bad Experience

by RichardWS

The headline says it all. This restaurant is immune to one having a bad experience. I have eaten here over six times in the past six months, and it just keeps getting better! I just wish I lived in the Marina area so that I could frequent it more!

(The Red Sangria is amazing!)

11/08/08

Marina let down

by 1mag

In 12 years living in SF and dining out regularly, this ranks as one of the worst 3 restaurants I?ve eaten at. We had to wait 15 minutes to be seated for our reservation. Our group of 7 was squeezed into a table for 6. The entire table had to be moved out for someone to use the restroom. It took 10 minutes for them to take our order and another 10 minutes to bring our drinks. 20 minutes is a long time to sit at a restaurant with nothing but water in front of you.

The food (small plates) did not match the menu on website. The variety, selection and overall taste of their dishes was uninspired. We were told that you can only order their grass-fed steak medium-rare or well done and that they ?don?t do temperatures.? Too bad they made such a fuss about their steak because it was ultimately chewy and overly buttered. We had to ask 3 times for one couple?s overly cooked steak to be delivered. By the time it came, the rest of the table was finished, so we watched as they ate by themselves.

There are so many wonderful restaurants in SF. This is not one of them.

• Pros: Fun Marina location
• Cons: Food, Service.

06/23/08

Laiola

by tommoxie

for all that love calimari this is the place save the sace to dip in ur bread :) every thing was great that we orderd excepted for the potatos i could make them better at my home.i orderd the wine from the list and ask the waiter what was best for the dishes and he was right on cant remeber his name but was fast and very helpful :) :) the chesse cake was alittle dry but the brulay was fantastic love the small sevings so all can get a small taste of exselence dont pass up the lamb cook to perfetion with the greens ummy ty!!!!! :)

• Pros: gerat food with helpfull staff
• Cons: none

02/27/08

Delicious nibbles and an extensive selection of Spanish wines make this Marina restaurant a sophisticated dining destination.

by Contributor

This modern Spanish tapas bar gets the young stilettoed and stylish crowd indigenous to the area as well as dedicated foodies you don't normally find here Marina. Chocolate brown, caramel and red walls accented by a copper bar frame chatty groups lounging on oxblood leather banquettes and couples at the two-top tables by the streetside windows. The small plates--house-made wild boar chorizo inside bacon-wrapped Medjool dates, and the famous (don't miss them) chickpea croquettes, and a flavorful salchichón studded with creamy chunks of fat--are difficult to share, though that has more to do with delicious than with size of portion. The bartender's specialty cocktails are a hit as well, though they tend to cause crowds to swell, which is Laiola's main weakness, although it's not usually considered one in a neighborhood where the most popular restaurants have bar-like scenes during the dinner hour.

01/09/08

Great place to dine with friends...until they ask you to vacate your table to make room for another party!

by sfbw

My girlfriends and I were enjoying a wonderful dinner at Laiola, and right as they took our dessert away, before we had finished our wine, the host came over and politely asked us to leave since there was another table of hungry people waiting. Now, all of us at the table have served at restaurants before and we know how quickly you need to turn around tables, however, we had not been there for more than 90 minutes and were drinking wine and ordering lots of food and were in no way overstaying our welcome by any restaurants standards. To be asked to leave the table, before we were even finished, after not having been there for that long, felt totally inappropriate and is a major faux pas in the restaurant industry. I have dined here 4 other times before and each time remarked about the incredible service, fun and friendly staff and wonderful ambience...after this experience, i don't know what to think.

• Pros: great food and atmosphere
• Cons: asked us to leave our table before we were finished

01/03/08

A Surprise Discovery

by mak8hot

We stumble across this little trendy restaurant on a Friday night. From beginning we had good feeling about the whole ambiance. It's a wonderful place to have a great dinner and be able to talk at the same time. I love it because although it located on Chestnut but it doesn't feel like a meat market like other places.

12/06/07

Great place for tapas!

by geofnorman

Great new restaurant in chic Chestnut Street area. Ambience and service are terrific, as are the food and wine selections. Plus, they now take reservations, so you don't have to wait to get a table. If, like us, you love tapa-style food, this is the place!

• Pros: Ambience, food, service and location

09/17/07

Great ambiance, nice wine selection, food average

by sugargirlj

Wow, they did a beautiful job of renovating the former Pizza My Heart space. The bar is a great central focus and the bar tables at the open windows allow for passersby to not be staring down at you (and your food). I was quite impressed by the very true-to-their-claimed-cuisine Spanish wine selection (I might be stopping here for a glass or two of wine instead of CA Wine Merchant at times). However, I was a bit disappointed by the food.

The menu sounded delicious... definitely had a difficult time choosing. Price, eh, not bad, not great, but not bad for the Marina (portions are very small though, but we were prepared as our server warned us). A couple examples of how it fell short of expectations: Bacon-wrapped medjool dates stuffed with chorizo. Bacon-wrapped anything is awesome, and yes, the bacon was delicous. Dates were extremely sweet and completely overpowered the entire dish. We ended up trying to scrape some of the dates out and low and behold found that one reason we couldn't taste the chorizo was because there really wasn't much chorizo. One piece (out of four) seemed void of any chorizo, another seemed to have less than a pine nut size of chorizo.

Grill pancetta-wrapped peaches - peaches were big and beautiful, sweet and true to the season. The pancetta worked, but one piece seemed to be overcooked and mushy, the other was pretty hard and undercooked; inconsistent. That said, they are still quite new so probably just need some time to work out the kinks.

Service was a bit disappointing - slow, impersonal, and the staff seemed a bit lacking in product knowledge (the server and the bartender could not tell us with certainty the difference between two wines). But again, new restaurant, I'd give them time to work out the kinks. I'll definitely be back for a drink soon, but I'll probably give them a few months before returning for a meal. The crowd that night seemed more there for drinks than food, understandable now.

• Pros: Ambiance, Wine, the Scene
• Cons: Food, Service, Parking

08/26/07

A New Favorite

by boosf

This is a great addition to Chestnut Street! The food was great...everything we ordered was fantastic. I cant wait to go back and try some of the other items on the menu. Also, they are extrely genourous on the wine by the glass portions and are offered at an affordable price.

• Cons: No reservations