Boqueria very recently won TimeOut’s award for ‘Best Cheap Eat’ and after a lovely evening spent at this Brixton restaurant, I can vouch for it being a deserving winner. It is inspired by Barcelona’s famous fresh food market ‘El Mercat de Sant Josep de la Boqueria’ – the name has been simplified to just Boqueria. This iconic market displays and sells an incredible array of fruit, vegetables and seafood and this eatery hopes to evoke its very vibrant flavours and atmosphere within a contemporary and comfortable setting.
The restaurant offers a range of traditional and contemporary dishes and this is how the menu is divided. Aside from the usual cheese and meat selection (which incidentally Boqueria does extremely well), we found we were more drawn to the modern recipes. After a delicious glass of sparkling we were treated to a bottle of wine. I left our waiter to choose trusting his judgement of Spanish food and wine pairing better than my own. The drinks menu is very reasonable and we found that despite its low price our white had a lovely full bodied flavour and pleasant aftertaste.
Salted padron peppers were brought to us without instruction, a little bitter but delicious when eaten with the bread and alioli. Chorizo cooked in cider was dangerously indulgent, to be eaten in moderation. Aubergine cannelloni with goat cheese and mushrooms was a surprising delight, brilliantly matched flavours and sloppy but yummy, and the fried squid with lemon mayonnaise was fresh and not too greasy, a definite achievement for breadcrumbed seafood!
There is lots of tempting meat on offer, we chose the two pork options: slices of Iberian pork shoulder with sweet potato puree was a little heavy and chewy for me but had a lovely flavour. Suckling pig with parsnip and potato crisps was insanely good and very tender but at the cost of numerous calories!
After his meticulous attentive service at the start of the meal when it was time for desserts, we found our waiter was nowhere to be seen, nor did anyone else offer us anything sweet. Feeling full and not bothered much anyway we left content after a very tasty and satisfying Spanish feast.
A short walk from Brixton tube station, don’t let the location put you off, this is a restaurant worth a visit even if you don’t live near the Victoria line and is a lovely foodie addition to the eateries of Brixton Village.
More information here.
