As someone who's half-Spanish, lived in Spain with a mom who cooked this type of cuisine on a regular basis most of my life let's just say my expectations were pretty high for a place with this type of hype.
First off, the place is very pretty! Ideal for a fancy meal or a special moment. It's a very busy setting with not a whole lot of room between you and other tables. To say they have optimized seating would be a fair statement. Atmosphere is great and for people who love trendy, this is the place to be. Looking for Romance, this isn't it! Looking for family setting, definitely not it! This is a place to be seen, a place to have an adventure!
We ordered the following plates and here are my impressions :
Charcuteria Plate : This plate consists of Iberian ham, chorizo, salami, olives, etc. It's a small tapas portion with EXACTLY 4 slice of everything. Priced at $22, I found the value in this plate low. I love these type of plates so I was looking forward to it... and.... and it was just fine, nothing really wowed me. Who would have known I needed more than 2 tiny slices of chorizo to have enough to have a tangible impression? (2/5)
Octopus & Sweet Potatoes : Very good, tapas style but good enough for 2 people. (4/5)
Patatas Bravas : Good but not that great, portion is somewhat small so sharing it for 2 was a stretch. It's potatoes people, give us more. (3/5)
Paella for 2 ($50) : Our main course. I won't lie, it's was pretty damned good and the quality of the sea food was top tier. Rice was cooked to perfection. Excellent dish but what's up with the $50 price-tag? Greedy!! (3/5)
Churros : To even consider the portion tapas style would be a joke. You get 2 tiny churros ($2 each) with a tiny bowl of chocolate to dip it in. Churros was crispy on the outside, inside was under-cooked. This was prepped sloppily. (1/5)
Service was very good, a little impersonal but did their job quite well. I'm always a little off when more than 2 waiters are passing by and attending my table. Not sure who to talk to and during this particular meal no less than 4 wait staff stopped by our table.
All in all, the food was well below my expectations and I'm still looking for an ideal Spanish resto in Montreal. Tapeo did not provide what I was looking for and with the price-tag being what it was, I felt it had low value.