Unlike many of the other eateries down Unley Road, Villa 77 is a Spanish tapas restaurant located in a converted character home. The menu is short and sweet with 8 tapas dishes, paella and cured meats. They also have a small selection of desserts made up of churros, helados and flan.

The one thing you notice when you walk into this place are the wonderful bright colours. Some walls have hand painted murals while others have interesting ornaments. There is varied seating from normal tables both inside and out, lounge chairs and bar stools. While there are many separate spaces, this place could probably seat a maximum of 50 people.

For dinner, we ordered a range of tapas dishes to share. The first dish took 15 minutes to come out, and then all the remaining dishes came out at the same time around 15 minutes later.

The first dish was the Albondigas Ala Asturiana which is spicy meatballs. The meatballs were well marinated, but the inside was dry and overcooked. The salsa had a thick consistency and contained chunky bits of vegetables. There was a subtle sweetness to some parts of the dish, but overall, there was a good amount of heat.

The Chuleto De Cordero is mustard spiced lamb cutlets with zesty cilantro chimichurri. The lamb cutlets weren’t the best I’ve seen and a little on the fatty side. They were well marinated, and the meat was tender and succulent. The flavours were well balanced with the chimichurri sauce.

The Gambas Ajillo are peeled garlic prawns tossed with chilli, olive oil and coriander, and served with tortilla. I personally didn’t like the presentation of this dish as it came in a bowl. I’ve seen this dish presented on a plate and I thought it looked much better.

The prawns were tender and succulent with lovely chargrilled flavours. We both thought the prawns were a little on the small side, although the tortilla and salad did fill you up a bit. It was also noted that the salad from the previous tapas dish was also present in this dish.

The Patatas Bravas is crispy fried potatoes with a spicy tomato salsa. The potatoes in this dish weren’t even crispy, in fact, some were slightly undercooked. The salad from the last two tapas dishes made another appearance, and the tomato salsa from the first tapas dish was mixed in with the potatoes.

The staff were friendly and the service was good. During ordering, I told the waitress to bring out one tapas dish at a time but was disappointed to have the last 3 tapas dishes arrive at the same time. Other than that, the drinks were constantly refilled and meals arrived promptly with the plates being cleared as we finished.

The atmosphere was fantastic at this place. The funky Latin tunes really make you want to get up and dance. As far as pricing goes, the tapas dishes range from $9 to $20, which is roughly what you’d pay elsewhere. The cost of 4 tapas dishes, on this particular Tuesday night where they had 10% off the total bill, was $52.

Some dishes were better executed than others, but overall the serving sizes were small. We didn’t like how the same salad was used in 3 of the tapas dishes and the same spicy salsa in another 2. Anybody thinking of eating here should order at least 3 dishes per person because we left this place unsatisfied and had to get dessert down the road.

WHERE: 77 Unley Rd, Parkside