An Off-Strip Tapas Restaurant Bites the Dust

Looks like Marbella Tapas Bar and Lounge has drawn its last breath. The restaurant serves a last dinner to employees tonight and sells off all of its equipment on Saturday.

When it opened, it took over the Ruth's Chris space on Flamingo Road. At the time, owner Sia Amiri had David Pena, who worked withJulian Serrano at Aria, and Marco Beltran, a former exec at MGM Grand's Diego, running the kitchen. Vegas Seven food critic Max Jacobson even called it "the best off-Strip Spanish food Las Vegas has yet seen."

The restaurant featured a bar split into smoking and nonsmoking areas, a patio, a cigar bar and flamenco music.

In recent weeks, it seems to have fallen victim to numerous Groupon/Living Social/TravelZoo deals, always a death knell for restaurants, to draw in customers.

Al Mancini of CityLIfe reviewed the restaurant last July and called it "one of the most troubled restaurants I've ever seen." After a big grand opening party in October 2011, the restaurant mysteriously closed until May, when Mancini "was served some of the worst food I've ever tasted. My wife and I tried five dishes. Two were bad. Two were extraordinarily bad. The fifth was completely inedible."
· All Coverage of Marbella [~ELV~]