Kanela Flamenco Bar & Restaurant

Such a great place with friendly staff. The food was nice, the sangria was great, and the show was awesome. I would definitely come back here. Really enjoyed myself at Kanela.

We thoroughly enjoyed our evening out. Waiters were polite and very attentive. Food was good. There was so much we couldn't eat it all and had some put into takeaway. Drinks were good. I ordered several margaritas. Entertainment was high quality. Violinist, guitarist and beautiful flamenco dancer. It was a shame there were not more people there to enjoy this. Johnson St used to be a bustling Spanish hub. This is about the last Spanish restaurant left there. If people don't support this worthwhile family business it won't continue. Price of $85 per head was cheap when one considers that you are paying for 3 professional entertainers as well as a dinner. PS we have no connection with these people.

Nice restaurant, perfect for a date. Delicious food and cocktails. Flamenco show by Sara is wonderful. Highly recommended it

Have been here couple times, hadn’t been for a while due to Covid. Recently went here over the weekend to celebrate my birthday. The food, atmosphere and flamenco show is still amazing. The customer service is impeccable. I love the socarrat part of the paella (for those who don’t know this is the crispy part at the bottom of the paella dish and is NORMAL for this dish). For those reading reviews ignore the negative ones as they don’t appreciate the authenticity of Spanish food that Kanela provides! I highly recommend Kanela and look forward to returning again :)

Do not go there, you will regret it. Don’t even worth 1 star To be honest, it was an absolute disaster. The owner/Manager, she is so rude after reading her replies on one of my friend post. Totally agree with my friend not worthy at all. I book a dinner for 6 adults and 1 kid online, then call the Manager and arrange to have the dietary requirements for my 2 guests. Spoke to her on the phone she was nice, even I was told that it is very busy and better to book now. Guess what. We arrived at the restaurant, no acknowledgement from her, neither from the waiters. The bartender greet us and advise us to wait for a mins. We sat at our table, we all ordered a cocktail and I asked for a Dry Martini with Gin Mare, I got a Ginger Martini instead,it’s ok, mistakes happen. I tried to explain the rude waiter that I asked for a Dry Martini with Gin Mare, and he said to me yes, this is it. I had to google to show him the cocktail. Bartender came to the table , very nice and helpful understood what I was after. Looked around the restaurant and found only 9 of us in the restaurant. Well Manager what a lie.The Manager was doing her own thing at that time pull a chair at the table and not sure whether she was changing her shoes or giving herself a foot massage. Food came to the table, the dietaries I asked for was forgotten. My guess had to eat the omelette and olives. I told the waitress that they don’t eat pork and beef and whether you have arranged something special for them. Guess what - 4 Grilled mushroom, it’s a $125 dinner per person. Waiter came to the table and clearing the plate of my daughter, I said to them that she’s not a big eater and will nibble from us. Rude waiter told me that you book only for 6 pax, so the plate needs to come out. I was furious, and wanted to leave. Anyways, Show started, it was not bad. We had our paella and was tasteless with burnt flavour. Now desserts, rude waiter came to the table and said”Sorry we are out of flan and you will get only Churios.Well the booking was done a week in advance and you ran out of flan. Good on you Kanela. We told them to pack it in a take away box because we couldn’t stay in this restaurant for more longer. The bill came in, and the total amount was $840.50, on the eftpos machine says $855.00, no one did bother to explain why there’s a $15 difference. I changed the amount to my actual amount and waiter came to the table said that you had to pay $855.00. I asked what the reason I need to pay that amount, he said that credit card surcharge 1.7%. I paid with a debit card not a credit card women manager. Hopefully you find something better to do, hospo is not for you.

Went there mostly for drinks and the performance. I regret it though, because the food smelt soooo good that I wished I hadn't had dinner beforehand. My only complaint about this place is how tiny it is. When all the tables are filled, it feels very crowded. And it's almost impossible to hear one another talk. Other than that, the drinks were great, the performance was breathtaking, the staff was amazing. Cannot wait to go back there again and this time have food for sure!

Very disappointed with our evening out! We arrived on time for our reservation and were the first to be seated. No one came to check in on us to take our drinks order, I had to get up to find a server to help us. It felt like the food took an eternity to arrive and to top it off we were the first to arrive but one of the last to be served which was really annoying. Overall it was an extremely over priced night out for below average food. Apart from the toast ... we honestly barely ate. The woman's toilet was out of service so all the guests had to use the men's toilet. The men's toilet had only one toilet, there was no toilet paper and the door lock was hanging off its hinge. Our desert never arrived but at that point we were done, we paid for our meal, thanked the servers and left. On a positive note the Spanish dance show was entertaining.

Really tacky experienced, way overpriced for what it was and personally I had a terrible experience. You need to triple check the email confirmation that comes through because they're incredibly draconic about it. I have a screenshot of the booking for the correct night on browser which I showed to them, but the email came through with a different date. I don't know why that happened, you would think if they're going to automatically debit $320 on the night they would call you first like other restaurants - it's not like there's that many patrons in fact it was pretty empty the night we came, and basically dead after the first performance. Most places won't refund the deposit but here they whack you with the full amount, and it just feels like they're taking advantage. It's not like the food was procured fresh that morning and they kept preparing food the whole night and threw it away, to warrant such a draconic response. Even without the issues, the food was bland and overpriced, one plate of dessert was missing, and by that stage we just wanted to go home. Have had a few people ask if we would recommend this place and I would be telling them all tomorrow a hard no.

Lovely staff, nice food. I was eager to enjoy the flamenco dance performance, however, we were thoroughly disappointed with short duration. It began after 10pm and ended before 10.30pm.

I don't recommend this restaurant. The food is expensive and the quality of the food is poor. If the quality was good I'm happy to pay for it, but this wasn't the case. On the other side, I'm sorry, but I'm from Spain and what this restaurant offers is NOT Spanish food. If you want to enjoy Spanish food in Melbourne you shouldn't go here. We ordered few tapas + paella and we didn´t enjoy any of the meals: The paella rice was overcooked, the chorizo frito was dry, even the bread was dry...like when you open a packet of bread and you leave it in the kitchen for opened. Moreover, we ordered a plato de jamon, and the quality of the ham was very poor (the ham was extremely salty).