Iberica, Marylebone

Someone told me that they think Iberica is better than Barrafina. Blasphemy I thought, Barrafina (and Jose) is the best Spanish restaurant in London. I have to check this out.

With a few outposts now Iberica could be considered - eek- a chain. They have two restaurants in Canary Wharf, another in Farringdon but I visited the restaurant in Marylebone, not far from Marylebone high street. One thing that might please some, you CAN book at these London restaurants!

The tapas restaurant is open and spacious set over two floors. Details like wood and glass and classic Spanish tiles have been carefully thought out to create a beautiful and lively surroundings. 

The first thing I noticed about the menu is that they have tried to modernise traditional spanish tapas food. They have taken the classic spanish flavours, grilled sea food, cured meats and chorizos, and updated them and put a modern twist on them.

Sadly I did not try the green Canarian mojo, but whatever it is, I want some of that mojo.

We ordered a different kind of sangria, containing prosecco instead of red wine. Interesting!! Also came in very cute jars.

Food: starting with fried chorizo lollipops with pear aioli. Lovely and not too greasy.

The best thing we ate, the squid ink risotto with cuttle fish, prawns and aioli sauce.

This was delicious, asparagus, manchego, onion confit and truffle oil. I'm a sucker for truffle.

Lamb sweetbreads, two way egg and roasted red pepper.

Serrano ham croquettes.

Crispy confit of Segovian suckling pig, apple puree and frisee salad.

Yes, we ordered a lot. Yes there were just two of us. But we still wanted dessert.

La tarte de la abuela, a kind of chocolate mousse.

All very lovely and I had an extremely enjoyable night. I admit after I came away I was on a high and thinking "Yep, that was delicious. I like that more than Barrafina too!" However, as I've had time to reflect upon the meal, as lovely it was, the modern style of tapas that they do is not making me yearn for more. There is no stand out dish that I still dream of, unlike the sobrosada on toast with duck egg from Barrafina. 

Those stronger, punchier flavours of classic tapas, which maybe more simple - for example grilled prawns with aioli and chilli - linger in my memory a lot more than the now seemingly bland flavours of Iberica.

Try it, you will like it, but it won't leave you gasping for me. I'm back off to Barrafina.

Barrafina, Soho

I love tapas. I love the concept of sharing when dining, mostly because I'm a greedy so and so who wants to try everything on a menu and that is why tapas is perfect for me.

Emma and I headed to Barrafina, a little place on Frith Street I love so much. We arrived at around 6.45 and had to queue for about an hour.

If you're arriving after around 6.00 on any day of the week you are most likely going to have to queue. There is only space for around 30 diners, all sat around a bar-like seating area where you can watch chefs prepare the food. A mouth-watering marketing technique, that's for sure. I find myself constantly asking them "What's that? Which one is that for?"and it usually concludes with me saying "I'll have 3, please."

However if you are starving, like we were, you can have a glass of sherry and some little nibbles to tide you over while you wait.

We got ourselves started on some sherry, ham croquettas and some chorizo wrapped potato crisps.

For a "nibble", the perfect croquettas were definitely a taste of what was to come. They were packed full with oozing cheese and ham.

Once we were seated it took us all of 3 minutes to decide what we wanted. I love the charm of their hand-written specials blackboard that is passed around to all the guests.

As is with tapas, dishes come when they are ready. We started with a courgette flower filled with goat's cheese.

We then had gorgeously tender gambas al aijillo.

Then the scallop came, maybe the best scallop I've ever had, it was cooked perfectly and completely melted in my mouth.

Then from the specials board, we had the epic-looking sobrasada on toast, which consisted of goat's cheese spead on toast, along with a spreadable chorizo, topped with a duck egg. 

Ohhhh it was my favourite dish of the night. Damn delicious.

Then came the morcilla iberica (spanish black pudding) topped with quail's egg.

I really loved the heavy flavours in this, however E wasn't too keen.

Nearly done…..

Then finally came our grilled quail with al-i-oli.

Juicy tender quail, with a lovely garlic dip. However this is now the 3rd time I've had quail and I think that is a sufficient amount of times to decide that quail just isn't for me. It's not to do with the taste, I find it perfectly appealing. But it is such a small bird that it is basically bone. It is so fiddly to eat, and I am a lazy eater. I will get stuck in and dirty, but it's so difficult to get teeth around all those bones, unlike say a rib joint. I won't eat a fish with too many bones, getting bored of the boning process, so the same obviously applies to meat. Sorry quail! 

I did notice that from my angle the quail looked rather pornographic…

All limbs.

After all that, feeling thoroughly satisfied and stuffed, we obviously then went for two desserts. We chose a crema catalana, a spanish creme brûlée and a chocolate tart.

This was beautiful. A glazed, crunchy top layer which lent a gorgeous caramel flavour throughout and a lovely orangey, spiced centre. The Spanish definitely do it better than the French.

And the purely decadent and rich chocolate tart. A perfect end to a perfect evening.