Don’t bother visiting Barrafina if you are not willing to wait for your supper. After almost two hours of queueing, I began obsessing and almost hallucinating about my imminent meal. The already seated diners, doing what I can only describe as cold hearted gloating, sat laughing and wiping neon chorizo juice from their mouths. Red with fury, fellow foodies offered me condolences (over twitter)… and advised me that the food ahead was worth the waiting agony. We sipped on our glasses of Macabeo 2010 El Muro as patiently as humanly possible.

Here I was thinking tapas was a quick light supper, apparently not as most customers seemed to spend hours deciding their order, dissecting prawns, sipping red wine and chatting endlessly as if they had all the time in the world… behind them the poor queuers groaned and drooled from utter starvation. As it had been another manic Tuesday blogging and I’d only had time for a measly croissant all day, I was planning on feasting when we did finally get to our table.

Seated in one corner of the tiny Soho restaurant we could survey the whole place, eyeing up our neighbours’ food so we could decide on the ultimate selection of tasty tapas. So here is what we chose:

Toast with Al-i-oli 3.1
I was so blind hungry when our this first plate arrived I can’t actually remember what this tasted like. We demolished it so it MUST have been good.
Chorizo Iberico 5.9
A rip-off frankly, for nearly six pounds we got about 12 tiny thin slices of chorizo. Not good enough.

Chicken Thigh with Romesco sauce 7.5
I love Romesco sauce, though Barrafina’s wasn’t quite as good as the recipe I’d experienced at Jose Pizarro’s restaurant. The meat was tender and well seasoned. A lovely dish.
Grilled Quail with Al-i-oli 6.9
Mean portion, but what there was was exceptionally good. Deliciously delicate meat with a crispy skin with yellow whipped Al-i-oli for dipping.

Chorizo, Potato and Watercress 6.9
We had already seen (and coveted) this dish from afar… intensely flavoured sizzling chorizo with fried new potatoes and fresh watercress. Gobbled and gone within seconds.

Green Salad 3.5
Best side salad I’ve ever had – deliciously garlicky dressing and fresh crunchy leaves. We had to order a second bowl as I became addicted to the vinegary dressing.
Chips with Brava Sauce 3.9
Divine: thin, crispy, salty and tossed with rosemary. Utterly yummy scrummy. Try dipping in Al-i-oli sauce, a more luxurious kind of mayo.

Crema Catalana 4
A kind of crème caramel / brulee… creamy light toffee tinted dessert with a hard sugary layer on top. It was a good dessert to share after a big supper and was served exactly as it should be… warm on top but chilled beneath.

The meal was, admittedly wonderful… Barrafina have got the stylish Spanish cuisine just right. A new branch is arriving in Covent Garden soon, which may ease the congestion at Soho, but until then try visiting at an unpopular time; otherwise you will have to wait a very, very long time for your food.

Visit the Barrafina website here.