Arta
This restaurant allows online bookings.
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62 Albion Street
- Food served: Thu–Sat 5–9.30pm.
- Pre-theatre times: Wed/Sat 5–7pm
- Number of wines sold by the glass: 12
- Private dining: Up to 18 covers
- Also offers: Vegetarian options (at least ¼ main courses), Gluten-free options, Pre-theatre menu, Live music
- Music on stereo: MOR, AOR, R&B
- Opening times: Thu–Sat 5pm–3am. Closed Sun–Wed.
- Capacity: 126
- Largest group: 100
- Open since: 2000
- House wine: £11.95 per bottle
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The 2011/12 edition of The List's Eating & Drinking Guide is out now – only £5.95 (+p&p).
Arta does well to bracket itself as the ultimate leisure suite for an aspirational generation weaned on Ready Steady Cook and Grand Designs. A cavernous, opulent venue for eating, drinking, disco dancing and live music, its menu accordingly hedges its bets, throwing a beach towel by the Mediterranean and hoping for the best. When it first opened Arta was ostensibly Spanish, now an Italian influence is more prevalent. Italy and Spain do not share a border but don’t tell a kitchen that divides its time equally between pasta, pizza and paella. Sure, the Catalans eat heaps of pasta, but Arta’s menu will fail to convince you that you’ve fallen through a Merchant City wormhole and ended up in La Boqueria. To start, a tapas-cum-antipasti free-for-all, at £9.95 for six dishes, seems the most reasonable choice for two diners, and while the smoked chicken was a bit anaemic, crying out for a weekend in the kiln, the olives and fish-cakes awakened the inner glutton. An unashamedly macho dish, the meatballs pizza was constructed on the solid foundation of a fresh, crisp base. But Arta’s paella, gilded with enough saffron to stain a silk shirt from 20 paces, was the real star.
- High point: Paella proving Spanish is still Arta’s mother tongue.
- Low point: Annoying switchboard when booking.
The LIST Card A2
This restaurant offers the standard 2-for-1 LIST Card promotion for:
Lunch: Wed, Thu
Dinner: Wed, Thu, Sun
Remember: book by phone (0141 552 2101) and ask for a LIST Card booking.
The LIST Card is a dining scheme that gives you promotional two-for-one offers at a range of restaurants in Glasgow, Edinburgh and beyond. Find out more.
Events at Arta (The Old Cheesemarket, 62 Albion Street, Glasgow)
| Location | Date | Tickets |
|---|---|---|
| Live bands plus DJs Martin Black (Fri) and Norman Robinson (Sat) playing funk and party classics. View full details |
||
| Arta | 10 Feb–1 Jun Not Mon, Tue, Wed, Thu & Sun | 0141 552 2101 Free before 11pm; £5 after |
| Location | Date | Tickets |
|---|---|---|
| Quiz to celebrate History Month with proceeds going to LGBT Youth Scotland. Entry is £12 per team of four, which gets you a buffet platter to share and plenty of fun rounds to keep the grey matter working all night. View full details |
||
| Arta | 24 Feb 7pm | 0141 552 2101 £12 per team of four |
Reviews of Arta (The Old Cheesemarket, 62 Albion Street, Glasgow)
- 3. Artful Roger, Glasgow – 14 June 2009, 9:08pm
ArtaReport -
Overpriced, glorified nightclub. £3.95 for 4 pieces of asparagus? Pu-leeze. 'Tapas' = a code word for ripoff. Main courses: chicken and potatoes. nothing special. The food is highly oversalted to make you want to drink, the staff are made to push booze. The scene at the door is just a joke - big bruizers acting like the gatekeepers at a rock concert to get into a restaurant?
- 2. sandman1978, ARTA glasgow – 15 March 2009, 10:17pm
ArtaReport -
Me and my partner were looking for a wedding venue with a difference and decided to go for arta due to the beautiful decor. We went for a viewing and were quite pleased.
The girl who showed us around (Jill) promised us confirmation e-mails about what we had discussed by the end of the week that was at the beginning of February 2009. We also emailed them menus prior to going there and they had gotten a price for them but were only confirmed verbally.
Now considering the initial contact was done in January 2009 it would seem a bit of a shock when we are still waiting after several calls to them to request the conformations.
we have been promised confirmation by the next day around 6 times and promised call backs which never happened and when we did call to query why they weren’t sending the confirmation they didn’t want to listen and were adamant we paid the non refundable booking fee of £500, which of course we refused to pay without first receiving confirmation as they promised.
We have spoken to three different managers (Jill, heather and a man we didn’t get his name),
We eventually decided if arta can’t do a simple thing like send an e-mail at the planning stage to confirm what we had discussed.
Then were not too sure how competent that they will be to actually deliver anything that we had asked for on the day.
We would not recommend planning a wedding or any kind of party here as the management are obviously not capable of doing a simple task like confirming the details that they are supposed to do for a living. (It is there job after all)
We are of course taking our business else were and would recommend other people who are thinking of using this venue for their celebration to do the same.
We had read previous forum posts saying bad things about arta and thought maybe the people just expected too much. But after the experience that we have had it would appear that every one of the posts could be true.
So my recommendation is play safe and go somewhere else as these people are paid to do this. It’s their job and it’s not a favour to you.
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