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el Willy

PHONE:

5404 5757

ADDRESS:

20 Donghu Lu,
near Huaihai Lu
东湖路20号,
近淮海路

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AREA:

French Concession

METRO:

Shanxi Rd (S), 8 mins. walk

HOURS:

Mon-Sat, 11am-3pm,
6-23pm,
Closed on Sunday

CARDS:

Local and international cards accepted

PRICE:

$ $ $ $ $ (Show Legend)

RESERVATIONS:

Reservations recommended for dinner

WEB:

www.el-willy.com

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Editor's Description

Last updated: February 06, 2012

el Willy is the eponymous restaurant of Guillermo "Willy" Trullas, and it's a wildly popular, mid-range Spanish joint. Willy's cooking is more contemporary than traditional Spanish -- he does "juicy rice", not traditional paella -- but stops well short of molecular fine dining. It occupies the first floor of the lovely Diage house, including a spacious outdoor terrace with plenty of seating, and is consistently packed. Good wine list, and, courtesy of The Willy, plenty of personality.

We tagged this venue with:

Restaurants, Mediterranean, Seafood, Spanish, Organic, Pet Friendly, Outdoor Seating, Business Friendly, Old Shanghai, Tapas, Villa, Popular, Dog friendly, Historic Building, Romantic, French Concession, Donghu Lu

Map by SmartShanghai.com

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2.7/5

Total user rating
based on 3 reviews

Write a Review for el Willy »

Value for Money

Suitable for ...

The Food

A Date

The Service

Business Dinner

The Decor

With Friends

Dec 2nd, 2011

Sofa_King

Joined Dec/11

Posted 2 Reviews

From: American

I will start out by saying the decor is cozy.

Onto whats wrong:

The service was slow, confused, and poorly trained. Many times my simple quesions about the menu were met by blank stares. The food is most certainly not authentically Spanish. They say the chef is trying a spin on Spanish cuisine, tastes more to me like cost cutting by sourcing only local ingredients. Drinks were not memorable, and the bill for 2 came out to over 1000 for mediocre grub.

Will not be coming back.

Value for Money

Suitable for ...

The Food

A Date

The Service

Business Dinner

The Decor

With Friends

Nov 29th, 2011

peterbush

Joined Sep/06

Posted 3 Reviews

From:

Went there for lunch yesterday and it was just BAD!
As set lunch menu, we had salad and soup as starter. Salad was tasteless and soup tasted like a Heinz canned soup, just adding some fancy sauce on the top. Then we shared a burger, which was just terrible. French fries was sooo full of oil that they were total dead and the taste was awful. All you could think about was oil. No little side salad. Just a small and boring flat burger with no taste in either meat, cheese or bacon. Bun was also loaded with oil.
Then the pasta dish came and it was, seriously, the worst pasta we have ever had. We were shocked to see how you could serve dead and soft pasta like that and the sauce was awful too. Wonder if that's how they make pasta in Spain...wow...then they better learn from the Italians.

In general, I don't get why people are so hyper over this place. The food is just bad and not worth the price.

Value for Money

Suitable for ...

The Food

A Date

The Service

Business Dinner

The Decor

With Friends

Aug 3rd, 2011

ipapoutsis

Joined Jul/10

Posted 6 Reviews

From: United States

We went to el Willy's for the brunch last Saturday, expecting to use our Enjoy voucher and "enjoy" a cheap meal.... well, I must say we were more than pleasantly surprised! The five course organic brunch was satisfying -- and a meal to rival some of the wonderful brunches NYC has to offer. We started off with a salad, which frankly was the least exciting course but was still quite good... but next came the chorizo sausage with stewed tomatoes and egg --- amazing! This was not the sort of dish I would likely order if picking from a menu but thankful it was chosen for me, because boy would I be missing out! Another course included was a pumpkin risotto which was by far the best risotto I have ever had, and again not something I would EVER order off a menu, being that I'm not a big pumpkin fan... but it was just the right amount of flavor - both savory and sweet. Delicious! Dessert was lackluster, I will admit, but remembering that this is China, and I don't have much of a sweet tooth anyway, I was able to forget this almost immediately. The set brunch menu was 198RMB (and with the Enjoy card, you get one free) so not only was this one of my cheaper endeavors, but it was my best thus far. Run, don't walk to el Willy's for brunch, but make sure there's an empty table there for me...

This are reviews posted by SmartShanghai members of el Willy within the past 12 months.
See all reviews or el Willy here.

Gulliver, Jan 19, 12

All-time fevourite

gigals, Jan 17, 12

Spanish

Sofa_King, Dec 02, 11

Sorry, atmosphere is ok, but service is subpar and the food is inconsistent at best. Seems to me this is another one of those 'hip' joints that don't place am emphasis on food.

concorde777, Oct 23, 11

Thats best spanish

Claire0620, Jun 24, 11

Great spanish!!!!!!

JZ1, Jan 15, 11

Spanish

jullysun02, Sep 04, 10

Well worth spanish food

chloe ni, Dec 04, 09

Outdoor Seating,spanish

yuyan, Oct 01, 09

Great spanish

PinoChan, Jul 25, 09

Looks good at summer nite outside, very relaxing friday hour there. but the price is a little bit high... umm.. one of the foreign waiter looks cute and cute.. lol (Sep. 24, 09)

PinoChan, Jul 08, 09

Like the envoiroment, good place for afternoon tea break

jdn, May 09, 09

Website

alex, Apr 19, 09

Beautiful garden, romantic atmosphere inside

sudasuda, Nov 12, 08

Set lunch Spanish, outdoor seating

... and 30 more

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