If you're looking for some great tapas in a quaint environment then head to El Faro in the Elliot Stables. With exposed beams and crooked cobblestones, the authentic Stables makes you feel like you've travelled back a century into old Auckland and one can imagine a horse and cart traipsing through in the middle of your dining experience!!

With a blackboard of mouth-watering tapas on display, selecting El Faro for our pre-theatre dining was a no-brainer, particularly with a great Sangria/tapas deal going... Summer's coming so it's sangria time!

The service was excellent and fast, the servings were generous and the sangria was delightful, full of chunky apples and oranges and left you wanting to hop on a plane to Spain to drown yourself in it! The spicy beef dish was spot on with flavour, the sourdough topped with prosciutto was complete with a mouth-watering caper-berry, the sherry mushrooms were juicy and flavoursome and the garlic aioli on the potato wedges was homemade and delicious.

This was our first visit to The Elliot Stables and our intention was to try each of the eateries for future pre-theatre dining... but it will be very difficult to avoid being drawn back into the Mediterranean delight that is El Faro.

We went to El Faro after purchasing a voucher from a daily deal website. I'd read the reviews beforehand and I was certainly not disappointed. I almost felt the reviews didn't do it justice enough.
Tucked away in Elliot Stables, there was a great vibe to the place.

The staff were nothing short of sensational. Very helpful, friendly and attentive. Not in an overbearing or hovering way at all.

The food arrived in really good time and was absolutely divine! The black Angus beef tapas that we had literally melted in my mouth.
We tried 6 different tapas and they were all delish.

The Sangria is so authentic and so tasty, if we weren't driving, we would have had a jug each (I was tempted as I wasn't the one driving).

My dinner partner can normally eat a very good sized meal easily and I was a bit worried he'd come up short at the end, however, we were both very satisfied after dinner and enjoyed a leisurely stroll back to the car.

All in all, El Faro is a restaurant not to be missed. The ambience inside, food & staff make for a brillant dining experince.

We'll see you again El Faro!

Great atmosphere with this small restaurant. There tapas are individual works of art that taste amazing! I tried an avocado tapa, loved it. Friendly staff + new tasty food...Go there, you wont be disappointed.

Headed to El Faro in the Elliott Stables and was pretty disappointed. The atmosphere in the 'shared' eating area is great, but the service was really slack (the waitress seemed to be rather annoyed we had turned up - they were pretty dead without us) and the menu was too thin to offer any real choice.

And when the food was delivered, the chicken wings were over-done, the beef was stewed and generally pretty average.

Went there on Thursday night and they had live band playing. The atmosphere was great and cheerful stuff was more than helpful. As for the food, it was very flavorful and surprisingly filling for a tapas-sized meals. Sangria is definitely worth trying, just wish they put less ice in the glass. Great place for romantic date or evening catch up with dear friends.

I see now after visiting El Faro & coming here to View website El Faro already reviews well so I will keep it short.
What an asset to Auckland this restaurant is, "thank you" to the team at El Faro for giving us all something different to the mass of asian, italian & kiwi fusion restaurants.
Well Done

Before going to the show at the Civic Theatre we headed over to Elliot Stables for a quick pre-show meal. At the stables we randomly picked El Faro just because we didn't have any Spanish food lately.
They helped us picking some food which could be served and finished within the limited time period we had. And I can say they really gave us some delicious food. Quick, tasty and certainly something we're going back to for a full dinner.

I took my boss's recommendation and took my date to El Faro and it was superb...the ambiance was amazing, lots of character and intimate.. something you wouldn't expect to find in Auckland.
Food was excellent and was good value for money.. we shared a few tapas, organic beef and a pot of mussels. and finished it with chocolate chorros which was fantastic, best churros I've had.. I would definitely go back..