Manchester has a huge Spanish dining scene with even multiple places along Deansgate, one of them…read morebeing La Viña which I tried for the first time during their ongoing 50% off promotion in January when making a booking, strangely there was no advertisement of this offer when actually making the booking, nor was their advertising of it on their website and it was just something outside the store. The reservations system does surely need some work as despite being open, they don't appear to allow reservations between 15:00 and 17:30, forcing me to select between the two, they didn't seem busy so my late arrival, however, wasn't a problem.
Upon arrival, I was disappointed to hear the 50% off food just included tapas, which excluded paella, the only other table sitting at the same time as me also didn't realise it excluded drinks and desserts. The staff did seem friendly and understanding regarding my allergies, sadly the potatas bravas and albiognas seemed to contain gluten, which are my favourite tapas dishes made gluten-free at nearby Lunya, I presume this was down to a shared fryer.
I opted to order the tortilla (Spanish omelette with onion), lemon and thyme chicken and a chorizo dish. I would say without an offer on food, tapas does appear to be rather pricey, while the pricing is competitive most other Spanish restaurants in the area have promotional offers throughout the year, rather than just in January. I liked how they did this for me with gluten-free bread.
They do have authentic Spanish vibes with rather nice decor and Spanish music playing including a changing specials board for food and wine. They do have upstairs seating on some form of balcony too, so if you do make a reservation I would say to specify you want an upstairs/downstairs table which might not be possible to change at busy times.
The staff seemed friendly and attentive however they become annoying after I was asked for my name I booked with half a dozen times by the same two servers. Honestly asking once or twice to mark off my reservation and get my 50% off is fine but it just became far too much.
My Chorizo dish was definitely my favourite, the chorizo was excellent quality and with a sauce from which I presume was tomato, red wine and onion just made it better and it was probably the best chorizo I've had, it was great quality and seasoned really well. This was served with gluten-free bread, instead of regular bread however I found it to be a little bland and tasteless, even with the sauce.
I did find the lemon and thyme chicken to be a little chewy however with hard vegetables, however, it still had great lemon and thyme flavours and it still looked pretty good too.
The tortilla unlike other tapas places including Lunya nearby was served hot and I like that, again I found it to have good flavours with the potato and onion and I did mostly enjoy it, but again it was a little dry.
I would return to La Viña, although the only dish I would re-order would be the excellent chorizo, it still remains one of the better Spanish restaurants I've tried in Manchester offering great flavours and authenticity and they are doing well to justify it being a slightly more premium option.
3* - Confusing 50% off promotion making it difficult to claim and I would have also liked to see a wider selection of more common tapas made gluten-free especially something as simple as fried potatoes with tomato sauce and aioli.
