Barrafina is such a clever name. Opened in 2006 by London's most dashing sibling restaurateurs Sam and Eddie Hart, 'Barrafina' alludes to its being a more casual tapas bar off-shoot of the brothers' estimable first restaurant Fino, as well as translating neatly, and highly appropriately, as 'Excellent Bar'.
London might, now, be spoiled for high-end tapas joints - and given my love of that cuisine this can only be A Good Thing - but Barrafina was the first to show that there was more to Spanish small plates than champiñones al ajillo and patatas bravas (although the latter do appear on Barrafina's menu and are, like everything, exemplary).
Another trail blazed by Barrafina, almost unheard of seven years ago but all but the norm now, was that of not taking reservations; seating just 23 at the L-shaped bar with a few outside tables for when weather (and Westminster Council...) permits, bookings would be impractical. Instead, plenty of space is available for those waiting and drinks and nibbles are served, creating a lively atmosphere. Lunch date Nick and I arrived early enough - just before 12.30 - to be seated straight away, but might not have been so lucky had it not been the first day of opening after the New Year bank holiday when much of central London was still pretty much abandoned.
Executive chef Nieves Barragán Mohacho augments the menu of mostly-familiar tapas classics with more ambitious specials using the very finest produce available each day. Fish and shellfish dominate and are alluringly displayed on ice behind the counter; the mackerel and sea bream on the day we visited were so iridescent of skin and bright of eye that they could have just swum in.
Dishes are served in a perfectly-judged order decided by the kitchen. Nick and I kicked off with springy little clams bathed in butter, lemon juice and parsley, a liquor we greedily mopped up with excellent bread, and pillowy salt cod fritters with properly punchy al-i-oli. Next came a whole mackerel, simply grilled a la plancha, the skin moreishly crisp, the sweetness of the flesh balanced by a colourful salad of wafer thin, delicately-pickled beetroot.
Morcilla Iberica - crumbly Spanish blood sausage - came topped with dainty fried quail's eggs, nested on a tangle of smoky piquillo peppers. Brussels tops were the very best sort of vegetable dish - the sort tossed in generous amounts of butter and stirred through with shreds of Serrano ham. A final dish of lamb sweetbreads, sautéed with shallots and capers, somehow managed to be both robustly offally and delicately savoury, a Special in every sense.
Nick and I were abstaining from alcohol but the choice for those who've not taken the pledge is outstanding. Unsurprisingly the list is all-Spanish, covering all regions and including such unusual wines as Basque txakoli and sherries en rama, drawn from the middle of the cask without filtration. Beer drinkers will enjoy the variety of bottled and draft Iberian brews.
Service is impeccable, well-paced but unhurried even given the pressure to keep the queue moving (simple good manners ensure most diners vacate their coveted stools as soon as the last plate is cleared and the bill paid). Barrafina is, understandably, not cheap, the insistence on quality produce - if the best is not available, a dish will simply not go on that day - reflected in the pricing. But it is certainly not over-priced for what is, some would argue, the best tapas in London.
Barrafina falls into that rarest of categories, restaurants about which there is nothing to fault. It's lively, egalitarian, elegant, the food is out of this world and you won't pay a fortune for it. This barra is very fine; very fine indeed.
Barrafina, 54 Frith Street, London W1D 4SL http://www.barrafina.co.uk
Posted by +Hugh Wright
With the exceptions of 'literally' and 'gourmet', I can think of few words more liberally abused than 'tapas'. With the not-unwelcome advent a few years ago of the 'small plates' concept came an entirely unwelcome side-effect, the rebranding of small plates of any cuisine as 'tapas'.
Thus we have seen 'Italian tapas' (actually cicheti), 'Asian tapas' (at the appallingly-named Tapasia, among others), even Norfolk tapas (for which I have at least to give the guys at The Pigs 10/10 for originality). When a while ago I received a press release vaunting a restaurant's new 'Spanish tapas' offering my Tautology Klaxon went off so violently that my ears have only just stopped ringing.
So what an abundant pleasure then to discover El Pirata, a sleek and shiny but entirely unponcey tapas bar in, of all places, Mayfair. Pointed in its direction by a pal who works round the corner, dinner date Joe and I spent an extremely enjoyable couple of hours eating great food, drinking nice wine and finishing off with a couple of not-'alf-bad cocktails.
Unlike the fancier new-wave tapas joints that have cropped up in recent years, there are no surprises on the menu at El Pirata. All the staples are present and correct - Padron peppers, Iberico ham, croquetas, patatas bravas, champiñones al ajillo - along with a few perhaps less familiar but nonetheless resolutely traditional weekly specials. For the indecisive or, if there still are any, the uninitiated, there are a couple of crazy-good-value set menus. Joe and I decided to take the glutton's way and just asked them to keep bringing us food until we either begged them to stop or passed out.
So as we worked our way through a lovely half-bottle of chilled Amontillado 'La Joya' we grazed on bread with good alioli, a plate of extraordinarily silky, sexy Iberico ham, simple chargrilled asparagus and the Russian roulette of tapas, pimientos de Padron (I took the bullet of the hottest of the bunch and the consequent thrilling endorphin rush).
Sherry drained we moved on to a bottle of crisp, grapefruity Inurrieta 'Orchidea' Sauvignon Blanc (El Pirata's wine list, all-Spanish, is tremendous fun and offers something to suit every pocket starting in the very low twenties and peaking at about £70). With it came calamari, on rice blackened with its heady ink, and sizzling prawns al pil-pil, the olive oil, garlic and chilli marinade seeping deep into the heads, making sucking them irresistible.
We finally gave up on savoury courses only having demolished some pork belly, its slight dryness made up for by cracking crackling, chicken and chorizo skewers - again a little dry, but damn tasty - and gorgeously tender pan-fried medallions of steak with a touch of white wine, served alongside creamy, dauphinoise-y potatoes.
I'm glad that we buckled and ordered afters, because the plate of cheeses, including Manchego and Mahon with that wonderful Spanish quince paste membrillo, was terrific. Better yet was a lemon brûlée, combining sorbet and cream fillings under a sugar topping made crunchy - evident in the tell-tale spiral scorch-marks and smoky flavour - with a proper quemador.
For no better reason than that we could, we ended the meal with palate-cleansingly tart Margaritas; we could have chosen a digestif from the remarkable selection of spirits, liqueurs and brandies, arranged on stepped gold shelves climbing up and down the mirrored back of the bar.
There was a last, pleasant, surprise; I knew that the friend who'd recommended El Pirata to me knew the owners, and as such figured that a couple of dishes might not appear on the bill, but in an act of unexpected generosity not only was no bill at all presented but we were forced - forced! - to accept a glass of Pedro Ximenez before we were allowed to leave. Altogether though, with sherry, wine, cocktails and tons of tapas, we'd have been looking at about £45 a head.
Perhaps because of the owners' largesse, or because of the lakes of liquor consumed, or all the fab food we'd had, or as is most likely because of all of the above, we left feeling thoroughly jolly and very favourably disposed towards El Pirata, as seems to be quite widely the case judging by the lively, buzzy crowd packing most of the two floors on our visit.
Literally, gourmet tapas. What's not to love about that?
El Pirata, 5-6 Down Street, London W1J 7AQ Tel: 020 7491 3810 elpirata.co.uk
Posted by
+Hugh Wright
I've never been particularly superstitious, but I did reach a point recently where I wondered if I was fated never to make it to Jose, a new tapas bar in Bermondsey from the eponymous Mr Pizarro.
First I had to miss out on being a friend's plus-one to the opening party when a course of medication I'd started caused some unpleasant and unpredictable side-effects including spontaneously passing out - never a good look when you're trying to network over patatas bravas. Then a scheduled dinner date with two pals had to be called off when first one cancelled because both his kids had the lurgy, and then the other because he had it. Jose seemed by all accounts to be under a bit of a jinx.
But thank goodness the jinx broke and, third time lucky, I finally got to experience Jose; I'm pleased to report that it was worth the wait. It's by no means original - great tapas and sherry bars are springing up all over town at a very pleasing rate - but Jose is more than just a great tapas bar, it's a great restaurant full stop, turning out some of the best food I've had of any type, anywhere, recently.
Recent raves on this site about The Fat Delicatessen and Capote y Toros will have left readers in no doubt as to my fondness for tapas, and ever since Opera Tavern in Covent Garden opened to almost universal acclaim last year I've been meaning to get along to sample its take on small-plates. So when my lovely friend and sometime dining buddy Will treated us to tickets to see Butley at the Duchess Theatre just a few metres away, Opera Tavern was the obvious choice for our pre-theatre dinner.
The imposing battleship-grey building on Catherine Street offers two dining areas, a buzzy informal ground floor bar and a more restrained first floor dining room. We were seated in the latter, and although very attractive - high-ceilinged, with a fabulous chandelier and some striking art - it felt a little awkward to be eating an essentially casual cuisine in such smart surroundings.
Opera Tavern's website describes their offering as 'Italian and Spanish-influenced tapas' - the latter part of that description surely something of a truism - and this translates into a menu split roughly 50/50 into traditional Iberian specialities and more modern small dishes using fashionable ingredients. It's an attractive proposition, offering plenty to appeal to the casual diner as well as excite the more adventurous eater.
Within a few doors of each other in West Brompton, the leafy little stretch of Old Brompton Road that's posher than nearby Earl's Court but not quite South Kensington proper,the same proprietors operate Cambio de Tercio - reputed to be one of London's best Spanish restaurants - Tendido Cero, a traditional tapas bar, and now Capote y Toros, a ham and sherry bar to which I was invited - you might say 'summoned' - recently by my good pal, Spanish food buff and culinary girl-about-town Rachel McCormack.
Let's just contemplate the beauty of that concept for a moment: a ham and sherry bar. A bar specialising in Spanish ham - the really good stuff, from pigs fed on acorns so that their flesh becomes all fat and nutty and sweet - and sherry, dozens of different varieties of it from the palest dry Fino to treacly dark Pedro Ximenez, as well as an all-Iberian wine list. In addition to the (amazing, silken) jamon, there's a list of about twenty tapas, most of them using sherry as an ingredient. Even in Spain such places aren't all that common, so for one to pop up in London is a rare treat indeed.
One of the many great things about living in London is that we are absolutely spoiled for wonderful local café/delis, where we can enjoy a quick, delicious snack or light lunch and then, if so minded, buy the ingredients to make it at all over again at home. As well as well-known mini-chains like Ottolenghi, small but flourishing independents populate many of the 'villages' which, cliché would have it, make up our fair capital; locals love to think of each as being their 'little secret'.
Apologies to the locals of Balham then for blowing wide-open this particular little secret, the absolutely delectable, worth-the-fare-to-zone-3 Fat Delicatessen. I'd walked past it numerous times on the way to and from visiting a friend who lives round the corner and always meant to go in; having finally done so for a lunch with said friend (let's call him Matthew, as that is in fact his name) and Alyn recently, I'm extremely glad I did.
