Tag Archives: Spanish

Camino, Monument

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Camino celebrates the flavour and vitality of Spanish life. The restaurants, which can now be found in four locations across London offer reasonably priced authentic tapas and delicious wines and sherries. We visited the most recent addition to the group in Monument. Satisfying the hungry bankers working in this area on a Thursday night, the bar area was rammed full but the restaurant was less busy. The atmosphere is upbeat and feel-good with expressive music and colourful decoration.

There are plenty of staff around to assist, we had several waiters checking up on us to ensure everything was okay throughout the meal. The spacious main room is ideal for large groups and the attentive service means you are unlikely to be forgotten, service is quick and efficient. It is worth noting too that on Tuesdays Camino have Tapita Tuesday from 5-8pm, you receive a complimentary small tapa when you order any drink from the bar.

The menu is made up of all the typical traditional tapas dishes: strong vibrant flavours, lots of meat, fish and fresh vegetables to choose from. We tried a range of the small plates on offer. Our waiter suggested 3-4 per person, we opted for seven to share which suited our appetite perfectly.

Pan Con Tomate: Coca bread with garlic, tomato, extra virgin olive oil and sea salt £3.25
Escalivada: Charcoal-grilled shallot, red pepper and aubergine with sea salt and olive oil £4.50
Chipirones a la Andaluza: Crisp-fried baby squid with alioli and lemon £5.75
Chorizo: Riojan chorizo with roasted piquilli peppers £4.75
Solomillo: 5oz fillet steak with Cabrales cream sauce and roasted winter vegetables £15.75
Manchego: Pasterized ewes’ cheese with sweet and nutty flavour, with quince jelly £4.25
Jamon Pata Negra (36 months): Hand-carved ham from acorn-fed Iberico black pigs, free to roam in the oak forests £12.75

Interestingly I preferred the simpler dishes… the tomato bread was wonderfully light, slightly grilled spritzed with olive oil and topped with lovely finely chopped marinated tomato. Chorizo with peppers was grilled and seasoned to perfection and the Manchego was exquisitely fresh and delicious. We found the fried squid a little bland but the grilled shallots and aubergines were surprisingly yummy, especially with a sprinkling of salt. The fillet steak was lean and full of flavour, served withcaramelised chopped vegetables and a heavenly rich and creamy sauce.

Fine Spanish wines are available to pair with your food, but if you are really in a Spanish mood, I’d opt for a glass of sherry to add a little sweetness to the meal.

After our tapas feast we skipped pudding, though the crispy churros served with dense hot chocolate did almost manage to persuade me!

I can imagine this restaurant will be a great addition to Monument in the summer months, but even when the weather is so freezing outside, the warm character of Camino has a very appealing allure.

More information here.

www.camino.uk.com/monument

Menu del Dia at Pizarro, Bermondsey Street

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Jose Pizarro is without a doubt my favourite Spanish Chef in London. His two restaurants at London Bridge make Bermondsey Street a firm foodie destination. When visiting the Caribbean, I was delighted to discover my passion for Jose’s food had travelled across the Atlantic. The manager of Cap Maison Hotel mentioned my positive reviews had inspired him to invite the great Jose Pizarro for a guest cheffing stint in summer 2013. With this in mind, I thought it was time to return to Bermondsey Street to sample Jose’s Menu del Dia.

I ate at Pizarro when it first opened late in 2011 and I’m very pleased to report that one year later the food is as good as ever. With an open kitchen, it is easy to observe the passionate enthusiasm obvious of all Jose’s staff. It seems to me that food is handled here in the way it should be, with care but not fussed about. On a busy Saturday lunchtime the kitchen was buzzing (we were sat very nearby), I was disappointed not to spot Jose amongst the team of chefs.

The Menu del Dia is a lunch menu, carefully designed by Jose using the freshest in season ingredients. This menu is ideal for weekday diners hoping for a reasonably priced lunch, at £18 for two courses and £20 for three. I was amazed with the variety the Saturday menu displays.

We chose the Iberico Ham to start and the Pork with roast potatoes from the daily menu. In my opinion a good Spanish meal should begin with a plate of glistening Iberico ham and as always the produce in Pizarro beats all rest. The finely sliced ham was divine, melt in the mouth and full of flavour. We ordered fresh bread to accompany the meat but I was sad to hear there was no aioli on offer. The pork, cooked medium rare, was irresistibly good. A lovely piece of meat simply but finely seasoned and served with lightly fried potatoes.

The main menu is filled with tempting treats. Our favourite was the Escalibada with Manchego cheese and herb oil, it is rare that a vegetarian dish exceeds my expectations but this truly did, a spectacular combination of flavours and textures. Prawns with pied de mouton mushrooms and chilli was a perfect starter, fresh and light dressed in a moreish spicy sauce. Neither of us took particularly to the beef cheeks with pumpkin puree, the beef was very rich and the pumpkin puree a little overpowering.

We opted for one cheese plate and one dessert to share. Coconut mousse with marinated banana and chocolate was an interesting mix of flavours, I loved the delicate and exotic mousse, but was unsure about the banana. Spanish cheeses are second to none, and at Pizarro you receive a generous selection of their best. Manchego outshone the others but all three chosen were delicious.

I am always amazed by the wine and sherries at Pizarro’s eateries. Our nervous waitress chose us wine to match our preferences and complement our food choices, and succeeded brilliantly at both. A lovely light wine, a robust red and a suitably sweet wine for pudding.

I don’t think I could ever get bored of Pizarro’s cooking and with the Menu del Dia this wonderful Spanish cuisine is affordable for all.

http://www.josepizarro.com

Fat of the Land, Marylebone

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Fat of the Land is a new Mediterranean pub and dining room in Marylebone. The restaurant specialises in Catalonian food and is the sister venue to The Queen’s Head & Artichoke in Regent’s Park and The Norfolk Arms in Bloomsbury. We were taken upstairs to the more formal seating area and treated to a bottle of fine Cava… light and very bubbly – this is how I believe every Spanish meal should begin!

It is a pleasant room, contemporary and minimal in its design with cool freestanding black lamps blasting a spotlight on each table. Our waiter was eager to please and served us with the utmost care and attention all evening even when the restaurant became busy.

It was easy to choose from the starter selection: bread, cheese, and cured meat is a must. We ordered Pa amb tomaquet which is a refreshingly different take on bread and dip, served more like a bruschetta with garlicky tomato sauce, bad for the breath but good for the soul. Our appetite slowly withered as we gorged on the thickly sliced Chorizo and Salchichon and the very moreish trio of flavoured Manchegos (chilli was our favourite). It was all divine and I felt like I could have quite happily eaten this all evening.

The meal gathered momentum as the mains started arriving. Crispy squid was a hit with my guest while I preferred the Roast chicken with its fragrant pimento spiciness; the meat was tender and soft with a crispy skin. Grilled organic rib-eye steak served with artichokes and rustic chips was the special for the day and came with positive recommendations. We enjoyed the assortment of ingredients though the meat was a little tough. Calcots and Baby carrot tempura with romesco sauce was rather greasy and the sauce was served cold, which was an unexpected shock.

We didn’t take our waiter’s dessert advice which was a mistake as our Crema Catalana was a bit of a disappointment, supposedly a Spanish version of Crème Brulee, it tasted more like a sweet omelette.

The mood is convivial and jolly as guests sit round the wooden tables chatting and enjoying their meals. Fat of the Land serves up comforting plates of food, and I’m sure the tables will be filling fast with hungry diners now winter is coming.

More information here.

 http://thefatoftheland.co.uk/

Boqueria, Brixton

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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.

http://www.boqueriatapas.com/

Salt Yard, Goodge Street

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I have been desperate to try Salt Yard for a while now, the first of three related tapas & charcuterie restaurants to appear on the London scene. This petite Spanish eatery is found on Goodge Street among many other bustling restaurants and bars, a trendy place to hang out and eat especially at the weekends. I went along one Saturday early in the evening with my dad, we had both prepared appropriately by starving ourselves prior. I was surprised to see the place was already almost full, foodie couples chatting over Malbec and Manchego.

The menu and style is similar to Opera Tavern (its sister restaurant), which after I tried it eighteen months ago quickly became my favourite food outlet in London… needless to say I have now visited at least ten times! The ambience is different at Salt Yard, slightly noisier and trendier with less of an intimate feel. We found the pop music playing distracted us a bit from the authentic and inspiring food, perhaps some flamenco would suit the mood and cuisine better.

I always find I get horrific food envy in tapas bars, it is so easy to order ‘just one more’ plate after spying a treat on a nearby table. And so a light Mediterrean meal becomes a heavy multi-course feast. To accompany our glasses of fine sparkling prosecco we ordered a selection of plates to graze on… though it is difficult to graze in Salt Yard, the food tastes so good it is hard to restrain from gobbling it all instantly. Chargrilled Country Style Bread arrived with creamy homemade Aioli along with Padron Peppers, Wild Boar Salami and Three Manchegos from La Mancha. The cheese was delicious, three slices all matured to different ages. Padron Peppers were simply grilled and salted, pleasant with a mouthful of cheese and bread but a little bitter to taste alone. The Wild Boar salami was the star of the show, soft thinly sliced meat with a distinctive rich flavour, moreish and delectable, I will definitely be looking out for this in the shops from now on.

Chargrilled Octopus with Warm Potatoes, Peas, English Asparagus and Mint looked and tasted fresh and vibrant… the kind of dish that transports you to a seaside café with the smell of sea salt in the air. Confit of Old Spot Pork Belly with Rosemary Scented Cannellini Beans is one of the most popular dishes at Salt Yard. Served modestly in a rustic dish, sitting on a bed of soft mild cannellini beans, it was surprisingly lean for pork belly, with a lovely light herby flavour.

Now the dishes were arriving thick and fast, exquisite recipes with thoughtful combinations and high quality ingredients. Of the meat dishes Roast Rump and Seven Hour Shoulder of Lamb, Crushed Pea and Mint Vinaigrette was my clear favourite. A delicious melange compiled elegantly with seasonal peas and mint – the taste was exciting and satisfying, with two cuts of the lamb offering alternative textures and the vegetables perfecting the dish. I found Chargrilled Iberico Presa with Whipped Jamon Iberico Butter a little too rare for my liking, however there is no denying that this variety of pork is really very exceptional. The unique flavour is unbeatable and the meat melts in the mouth.

Truffled Macaroni Cheese shouldn’t work but does… recommended as a ‘must try’ by our waitress, we succumbed to the rich and gooey dish. It was excellent, creamy and comforting with a subtle hint of truffle oil, a lovely accompaniment with the meat dishes. Courgette Flowers stuffed with goat’s cheese and drizzled with honey are really excellent, a successful combination of flavours and textures, the flowers covered lightly in batter and the sweet honey complementing beautifully. Even though pricey (£7.95 for two small stuffed flowers), I would say this is an essential addition to your meal.

Puddings were a real highlight, and despite feeling full we managed to try two simple but spectacular desserts. I was tempted by the homemade Churros with chocolate sauce, doughnut dunking batons that reminded me of summers in southern France. Instead we chose the more sophisticated Hot Chocolate Fondant, Marmalade Ice cream, Almond Florentine and the English strawberries with Mascarpone Panna Cotta with White Chocolate Crumb. I can’t fault these two recipes,  executed and arranged to exemplary standards. The fondant was light and indulgent, the marmalade ice cream was innovative melting into chocolatey cave, the additional extra thin Florentine added a little crunch to the dessert. The Panna Cotta was exceptional, a creamy texture without the usual gelatiney texture, it was light and fresh with segmented sugary strawberries and a luxurious hint of white chocolate.

I have no doubts that the Salt Yard group of restaurants provide the best tapas in London: traditional but trendy, simple but stunning.

Visit the Salt Yard website here.