Casa Mazal

I’d it were not for the pleasant surroundings, this restaurant would only get one star from us. Consider… one appetizer order of falafel, one Greek salad, one small entrée plate of rise with duck confit, and two small bottles of water for 47 euro. No wine. The Greek salad had no olives and largely consisted of cabbage instead of lettuce. The falafel contained no herbs, and might be better described as a dry chick pea flour hush puppy. We did order two glasses of vino verde, but when the wine arrived completely flat and Luke warm, we thought our waiter was going to get a new bottle, but he returned with the wine list instead.
Add to this, when we entered the restaurant, the waiter pointed to a table across the room for us to sit. We were given a lovely bread basket and the water we ordered, but the waited 25 minutes for menus.
Do yourself a favor, disregard the overly positive reviews, and head for the Victoria market about a 10 minute walk away.

I’ve given Casa Mazal a two star rating due to the taste of the food. The atmosphere was really nice in the courtyard where we dined. The staff were also very nice, accommodating, and even funny with our young kids. The presentation of the dishes were also nice. However, at the end of it all, I’m going to a restaurant to eat, and I expect the food to taste good. We ordered the eggplant/​aubergines with honey and poppy seeds; cod with grapes, lamb couscous, and the corned chicken with boiled rice for the kids. Every dish was lacking salt which made the dishes lack flavor. The eggplants would have tasted so much better if a bit of salt was sprinkled on them. The cod had no flavor and the grapes did not add anything to the dish except décor. The lamb couscous also would have been fine if salt had been added to the dish. It seemed the chefs were cooking without salt. The corned chicken was all right with the sauce given, but nothing special. We also found the restaurant to be over priced for the quality of food.

Great atmosphere but food was a bit uneven, especially for the price. Take the waiter’s recommendations! We had the trio of soups (a bit thick but very good) and the falafel (delicious and fluffy!) to start, and enjoyed the vegetarian stuffed grape leaves immensely. However, the Greek salad was really simple and way over-​priced.
Service was overall very attentive, especially by Andalucian standards. I wish that the server had known a bit more about sherry, however.

Casa Pepe de la Juderia was a highlight of our time in Córdoba. We dined on the rooftop terrace on a beautiful moonlit night under the tower of the Mezquite. The food was delicious and the service fantastic. Highly recommend !

Great decore with the option to eat either outside or inside. Really friendly staff with multi linguistic abilities. A very nice warm environment. I had the duck and mushroom dish which a little heavy on the sauce but the duck and mushrooms had great flavor and texture and the rice was cooked well. I would recommend it to anybody walking by just to poke your head in even to just have a coffee which amazing in itself.

The patio is lovely, the menu is varied and has information about common allergens. I was able to get a stunningly delicious meal that was vegetarian and gluten free. Highly recommended for anyone its food allergies

4.5! This restaurant serves Sephardic Jewish food and I was really excited to visit it; however, when I visited in 2012, they were closed (it was a Sunday or Monday). This time, I made sure to go when they were open and made a reservation several months in advance. Little did I know, only Americans eat at 8/8:30pm, hence they were so relaxed about the reservation. The locals came out much later (after I left).
The homemade food was very good. Unfortunately, the portions were American sized and so we only ordered a starter and an entrée. The fried eggplant with miel was light and delicious and also slightly different from other places that we tried. We got a dish that describes as cod in an «odorous» sauce which was way better than the description. By odorous, it seemed they meant fragrant! The dessert menu was unaspiring so we didn’t order anything. They gave us free digestif (pedro ximenez which was good if you like really really sweet dessert wine).

Food was delicious. I had the Veal Stew Moorish Style, a taste of the eggplant drizzled with honey appetizer, and a scoop of the violet ice cream as dessert. All were excellent choices. Dishes are very large. Waiter helped make choices and cautioned me for the size of the plate to ensure I didn’t order too much. Felt I received personalized serve and would come back again.

The location is very conveniently located near to the mezquita and in the old Jewish neighborhood of Cordoba, which is very nice to walk around — and I recommend you do this to digest the meal that you have here, since you will probably eat a lot!
The patio is very cute, and if you have enough foresight, I would call ahead and make a reservation so that you can sit in one of the 4 outdoors tables. The menu is limited, but the food is very well prepared and very flavorful. Specialties include various types of couscous and many vegetarian options. Definitely would recommend this place.

Excellent. We read the reviews on Unilocal and decided to try it and we were not disappointed. The chicken and lamb dishes were excellent. Probably the best meal in the ten days we have been in Spain. Strongly recommend.

Delicious food paired with excellent service makes this our favorite place to eat in all of Cordoba. The Eggplant with Honey and Raisins is top notch and the Salmorejo is phenomenal. Don’t miss this great place!

Excellent food that was slightly different from the standard Middle Eastern food. Nice atmosphere & friendly staff. Situated in an old building surrounding a courtyard. The aubergine with honey & poppy seeds was excellent.

Trust me when I say stay away! Over priced ridiculous made up dishes that truly have I historical claim to Sephardic heritage …

Soooooo good, after touring cordoba in 100 degree weather this place was an oasis. Delicious food, generous portions, super cute waiter. Get the Greek salad, or the eggplant appetizer. Yummm.

The best meal I’ve had in Córdoba so far. I went for lunch and it wasn’t very busy; I was able to sit in the adorable courtyard and service was very prompt. I had the citrus couscous with chicken, and it was so flavorful and a good sized portion for one person for lunch (although, at 16 euro, it might have been a tad too expensive. Just a tad). The bread was 1 euro and it was delicious — filled with black olives and served warm. I also had a very refreshing glass of sangria. My only regret? Passing on dessert… I really wish I had tried the marzipan with cinnamon ice cream

Oh boy … I keep telling people about this wonderful restaurant and when I went to send them the Unilocal review … realized I’d not reviewed it.
And thus my review — We were there in August 2012 on our grand tour of Spain & Portugal. I can’t recall how we found it … perhaps a Unilocal review, but when we got there we had on our favorite meals of our entire 3 week trip. [I know you want to know our favorite — it was Alqahira Rincon de Oriente in Toledo, which we also stumbled upon and turned out to be #1 of 244 restaurants in Toledo!]
We ate upstairs in a lovely small dining room, overlooking the courtyard. I can’t remember what we had, but do remember that we looked at each other and smiled (of course, not just for the food)
So … I apologize for not giving foodie details, but what I remember was what a wonderful experience, gracious service, and excellent lunch we had.
Go!

Looking for something different than tapas? This is THE place to go. Hidden away in a small street of the Juderia, this resto has an adorable patio and a well cooled inside room with space for about 20 people. The menu consists of a mix of arabic/​spanish/​jewish dishes which are to die for. Me and my boyfriend both opted for a couscous. He took the special of the day with cinnamon, abricots, dates, spices and chicken — what a meal. Absolute fabulous flavours. Never tried such an original couscous. I had a fish-​couscous. very nice as well. Very tasty. Absolute worth for your money (around 12 – 15 € pp). Service by a young man who spoke an excellent French — he was helpful and polite during our stay and pleasant to talk to. Great place to have lunch or dinner.

Ayer cené en Casa Mazal, el primer restaurante sefardí del que oigo hablar y del que he todos salimos más que contentos.
Antes de nada, el local está ubicado en mitad de la judería, al lado de la sinagoga, y está al fondo de un pequeño «callejón» de los que hay en Córdoba a cientos.
Según entras das a un pequeño y bonito patio con habitaciones anexas en las que te sientas a comer, decoradas con buen gusto y con música clásica sonando a un volumen suave.
El servicio es espectacular: No solo te recomiendan a la perfección sino que nuestro camarero fue profesional, amable, muy educado y supo añadir valor a nuestra cena. Pocas veces he salido de un local pensando en el trato recibido como uno de los valores principales de la experiencia: aquí sí fue así, y eso que la cena fue de órdago.
De entrantes pedimos falafel y berenjenas fritas con miel. El falafel estaba bien, en lugar de ser un rebozado crujiente era fino y suave y daba la impresión de ser más un buñuelo que otra cosa. Venía acompañado de algo de ensalada con salsa de pimiento, y un pequeño vasito de salsa de pepino que acompañaba perfectamente. Aunque estaba rico no era espectacular, y quizás algo escaso, así que si vas ve directamente a por las berenjenas con miel.
Las berenjenas con miel son unas rodajas finísimas de berenjena rebozadas de tal forma que parecen casi un pequeño bollo. El rebozado tiene un montón de volumen y cuando lo muerdes parece aire, con una berenjena que se te deshace en la boca. Buenísimo, además hay mucha cantidad y viene con una pequeña ensalada con una reducción de aceite de módena, que junto con la miel, está riquísimos.
De plato principal yo pedí un plato de timbal de berenjenas que era espectacular. No sé como dos rodajas de berenjena con queso en el centro, y regadas con salsa de pesto pueden estar tan buenas, pero lo estaban. La textura era increíble y en general era uno de esos platos que no quieres que se acabe y ahora echo de menos por las noches antes de dormir.
Mis compañeros alabaron especialmente los puerros rellenos de bacalao con crema de espárrago, y aunque el cuscús estaba bueno y el pollo con dátiles y pasas era muy sabroso (aunque podía llegar a repetir si se lo pedía una sola persona sin compartir) no llegaron al nivel de nuestros platos.
Todo vino acompañado de pan con semillas de amapola y pasas y pequeñas piezas de pan tradicional que estaban muy ricos.
El vino blanco que cogieron para nosotros fue un absoluto acierto, y en los postres pedimos la sopa de chocolate blanco, el brownie de chocolate y curry y el flan de calabaza.
Personalmente el que más me gustó fue el flan, ya que en el brownie no se notaba demasiado el sabor a curry (si pillabas pequeños puntos salados, que podían ser curry o pequeños cristales de sal gorda) y aunque venía acompañado de un helado de lavanda (me parece que era) que estaba bien. La sopa de chocolate blanco, sin más.
El flan sabía realmente a calabaza y venía acompañado de orejones y semillas. Sin ser un sabor espectacular sí era curioso y me pareció un acierto pedirlo.
Sobre precios, no es un lugar barato, pero tampoco es caro. Nosotros pedimos una botella de vino, 2 de agua, 2 entrantes, un plato por persona (somos 7), 3 postres y un té, y salimos por unos 22 € por persona y volvimos a casa CONTENTOS de haber comido tan bien como lo habíamos hecho.
Solo para que conste, no tengo acciones en el local, ni es de un primo mío, ni tengo nada que ver con él, pero bueno, a veces un sitio te gusta tanto que simplemente tienes que compartirlo. Y si no te lo crees, pásate y dime si me equivoco :)

This was a nice break from the traditional Spanish fare. The called the food «Jewish», but it was not the Jewish food I know from the states. This was definitely eastern Mediterranean. It was delicious food and very generous portions. I would have ordered a lot less had I known; plus they seen offended if you leave anything on the plate («Did you not like it?» was asked).
The service was extremely nice, but very slow (even for Spanish standards).

Worst restaurant experience ever. We shared a plate of fried eggplant with honey-​eggplant undercooked and basically lost in frying batter, the latter was bland and even a drizzle of honey could not give it any flavour at all. A plate of so called andalusian cheese was a few tiny pieces of manchego, goat cheese aged in ashes and creamy goat cheese. They were fine because I really love all types of cheese, but the portion is just ridiculous, and they have nothing to do with Andalusia! Also the plate featured some over-​dried raisins, crushed nuts and membrillo which was definitely not home made as said in the menu, but bought in mercadona. The main courses was even worse. We have ordered two cod dishes, tuna skewer and something featuring lamb. The cod dishes was just cod fillets (fresh cod, not the more flavoursome salted cod) grilled and then decorated with in one case with cinnamon stick (no kidding), and in the other case-​with fresh grapes. There were some grilled vegetables on the side with were cold as though they have been cooked the night before. Tuna did not taste like tuna at all-​it resembled a paper damped with some stinky sauce. Lamb-​like I said, I have no idea what it was but it did have a look like someone had eaten it once already and then brought back to our table. What is even more awkward-​the service was very rude, and terribly slow. We did not complain because really what is the point, but the waiter when he took our plates almost untouched, said that we do not appreciate fine dining. Yeah right, and me being a professional cook and in fact a great fan of sephardi cuisine (which is why we went to this restaurant in the first place), does not mean a thing. Also at the same time with us there were a couple who left after their ordered main dishes never came and the first course of some salad was so bad, they asked to take it away with barely touching it.

Sephardic cuisine in the heart of Cordoba’s Juderia. This is fabulous food — really was a highlight of our trip in Spain. A quiet patio, lovely and friendly service (in English if you want), and just gorgeous food — mix of Sephardic and Arabic. Clearly enjoyed by the locals too. Save room for dessert as there are good things.

Wir haben im Restaurant Casa Mazal in der Judería Nachtisch gegessen und uns sehr wohl gefühlt.
Das Dessert war ein Traum. Die Portion war von der Größe genau richtig. Der Geschmack außergewöhnlich. Wir hatten Ingwereis, Marzipan
Das Gebäude ist typisch für andalusische Altstädte mit Innenhof und Empore/​Balustrade im ersten Stock. Die Platzwahl ist vielfältig: Innenhof, Balustrade, Gasträume.
Das restaurant ist stilvoll eingerichtet und der Service war nett. Es war voll und so hat es manchmal etwas länger gedauert.
Es gab jüdische Livemusik von einem Violinisten der Innenhof hat hierfür eine tolle Akustik. Die Stimmung war wirklich schön.