Parador De Soria Antonio Machado

We han stay in 20 Paradores in the past. I don’t rememuhaving a bad meal. May main course, a substitution from one listed on the menu, since they run out, was tasteless, cold and poorly presented. Was supposed to come with smash potatoes, make that liquid potato. Could not take it with my fork, I gad to use a spoon. Even the dessert was not good. Coffee and service was good.

The Parador itself was lovely, wonderful, highly recommended. The restaurant wasn't. Fair's fair, however: the breakfasts were very good. So why such a low mark for the restaurant? Firstly, because of the limited menu. Again, to be fair, it was during the pandemic with a partial lockdown, so very few customers. And, very sensibly, they therefore cut down their menu. But unfortunately for us, staying there several nights, they cut it down but keeping the local specialities. Now my view of local specialities is that if they are any good, they become well known nationally or even internationally. Pizza and paella are the two I always quote here. So if the local specialities are designed for very local tastes, it's probably not a good idea to have a menu in a top hotel, where guests are likely not to be local, consisting mainly of local specialities. We found it difficult to choose our food, and were reduced to asking if the kitchen could just give us a mixed salad, for example, as a first course. Secondly, one of our choices was not good. Nothing to do with the quality of the meat, but its cooking. We chose, both of us, the Solomillo de cerdo ibérico, pork loin. This was served on our plates as a piece of loin, a sort of roll, cut in half. But . . . But on each plate there was a half loin, slightly underdone in the middle where it was cut in half (it is said that unlike beef, pork should always be well cooked because of the risk of infection with Trichinella spiralis, which can lead to trichinosis. It was clear that we each had a cut half of one of the loin pieces. The second piece of meat on each plate was not underdone. On the contrary, the cut face of the meat was very well cooked indeed, it had been fried. Clearly it was a leftover loin piece, leftover already cut in half, and had been reheated by frying, including frying the cut face. If you look at my photos you can see the undercooked cut face and the fried reheated cut face of the loin pieces. This is not acceptable. Finally the service was very poor. We had a waitress or a waiter, depending on the day. Both were underworked, as there were only 3 or 4 tables, each of 1 or 2 guests only. But instead of remaining in the dining area, by the desk, they just went away, presumably to chat in the kitchen, which was more interesting than standing around waiting to see if the customers wanted anything. If we did want anything more wine, water, the dessert menu, or even to sign the bill at the end of the meal we had to wait until the waiter or waitress came back into the dining area. So poor choice of food, poorly cooked food, poor service. That explains the 2 stars. Great pity as both the Parador and the town were lovely.

We were here for the “Truffles presentation” with the “Amigos de los paradores”. Two nights with breakfast, presentation, excursion to the truffels farm and special dinner with truffels. Pleasant ambience, very nice treatment, ample breakfast buffet, great dinner! One small downer: the bar closed at midnight, just half an hour after we had ended our fabulous thematic dinner with several new found, like-minded friends and lots of topics to talk about.

La ubicación es inmejorable,vistas de toda Soria increíbles. Tanto el desayuno,abundante y productos de la zona, como la cena,presentacion muy cuidada y una deliciosa variedad de platos. En cuanto al personal,como acostumbra Paradores, excelente,desde la recepción hasta todo el equipo de restauración. Una experiencia maravillosa

Andando esta a 15 minutos de la plaza Mayor, eso si es cuesta abajo, luego hay que subir, pero no se hace pesado. Nos atendieron genial en recepción y además te invitan a una consumición de cortesía. La habitación limpia y recogida, he echado de menos una cafetera en la habitación, no se si habitaciones más caras si tendrán. Hay buenas vistas desde el Parador. Tenía minibar con algunas bebidas. No se el precio porque no consumimos.