Hispania

Preconceptions are funny things.  I have to admit having three of them, about Hispania, that were held before last week’s visit:

1. I had never noticed it being there, despite it being open now for over two years and passing by it relatively (although not very) regularly.
2. Even if I had noticed it, I’m not sure I would have gone.  Another fancy Spanish restaurant in the middle of the City full of dreadful bankers and serving overpriced food? Hmmm. 
3. Also, some of the reviews have not been great (Time Out: 2 stars…)

Anyway, turns out preconceptions are a crock of shite, because Hispania is really rather good.
There was a group of us searching for a meal.  One chap suggested tapas at Hispania, despite him being strictly averse to sharing food, but he’d had a colleague go there who enjoyed himself.  Everyone agreed.

Have you ever tried ordering tapas amongst a large group of people?  Well don’t.  Even when you tell people to choose two dishes there is so much chit chat and wasted time and then you end up with a dozen bowls of patatas bravas and a platter of cured meats.  Best do what we did: Order the lot.  Literally, we ordered one of everything on their tapas list plus a platter of mixed meats and another of mixed cheeses.

Quick (photo-less, sorry) word about the wine.  Matthew, our resident wine expert and who has sold Hispania wine before, chose two bottles of red – one lighter and one heavier.  The heavier wine was Lucero del Alba, a Tempranillo (£30).  Dark, tannic and chewy, with t scent of burnt toast.  It was a food wine – and a rich, red meat kind of food wine at that.  Very good though – just my sort of thing.  The lighter wine was the Lágrimas de Garnacha (£26).  This was stunning – just amazing.  It was, again, quite punchy and spicy but with an immediate sweet note as well.  There was toffee as well, together with a hint of horseradish and also – and stay with me here – the flavour of burnt fat you get around a steak that’s been barbequed over charcoal.  Fantastic.

Now onto the food.

First out were the cold dishes.  Cured meat selection.  Top to bottom: Jamón Ibérico, lomo (loin), salchichón and chorizo.  Great stuff, top quality.  There’s not much more to say, I suppose, but I do love Spanish meats.

Crujientes de quesos:  toffee-coated crispy, wafer thin pastry stuffed with creamed cheese.

Initially, these were poo-pooed by the group, who did not like the sound of the dish.  OK, I get why some people might not be so keen – although a seasoned ‘salt-and-sweet’ grubster like myself had no truck with such objections.  These were great – in fact, it was the biggest opponent who ate the spare sample.

Spanish cheese selection.  Manchego (top, yellow triangles), Ibores (left, sticks with orange rind), Cabra Montenebro (right, grey rind, interspersed with membrillo (quince paste)) and Mahón (bottom, triangles with orange rind).

Again, all first rate and very delicious.  The standout favourite was the Cabra, a goat’s cheese – which is funny because I’m not that into goat that often.  This was delicious, however, and the membrillo worked with it like a treat.

Now for some fishy things.  Starting with monkfish.

Monkfish is a brilliant fish, in my humble opinion, probably because it’s so meaty.  Just excellent (even though it costs a fortune) and here was no exception.  Lightly battered and fried, they fish was cooked properly.  I also absolutely bloody love piquillo peppers.  I will never forget the first time I tasted one any being physically knocked back by the intensity of their flavour.  How, I remember thinking and still wonder each time I eat one, does that much pepper-taste get in to such a small amount of vegetable.  So two of my favourite things.  What’s the catch?  Simple: they just don’t go together.  I’m not sure who paired these or why, but whilst each constituent element is wonderful, the finished article just falls a little flat.

Calamares.

Bloody love calamari and these were bloody good examples.  With a squeeze of lime (not lemon, peculiarly) and a touch of lime zest this was a simple but delicious tapa.  It’s also worth noting that the squid was evidently fresh and cooked properly – soft and light, not hard and rubbery.  “Kentucky Fried Squid” said one diner (cruel but accurate – except, I might add, with significantly higher quality) whilst another diner passionately sworn off squid wolfed down a portion.  Happy days.

Gambas al ajillo.

Or, prawns in a spicy, garlicky sauce.  Very classic.

Onwards and upwards: Now we hit the ‘hot food’ section (notwithstanding that the fish was hot – it was meant to be a sort of starter-fish-mains experience – I think?).

Croquets, which came in two forms:

1. Croquetas de jamón.

Very nice.  Large enough to get a proper portion but not so large that they are difficult to eat.  Very tasty too.

2. Croquetas ‘Hay Festival’.

I am sure there is a back story to these, other than “created specially for the famous literary festival” that the menu proclaims.  I would like to know the back story because otherwise I cannot work out how (a) they are especially (that’s the correct word, btw) suited for the Hay Festival and (b) it was ever thought that substituting jamón with leeks would be an improvement.  Unless, of course, the chef at Hispania hates the Hay Festival / bookworms in general and wanted to serve an inferior croquet.  To be fair, there’s nothing wrong with this, it’s more a case that there’s nothing right with it either.  It’s just that I can’t help feeling that, on the choice of croquet with ham and croquet with leeks, the sane person would (and should) always choose the former.

And the ubiquitous Spanish tortilla.

Now, I actually tried to talk the table out of ordering this because I’m no fan of omelettes and most forms of potato (yes it’s weird, no it doesn’t preclude me writing a food blog, and I’ve written about this in more detail elsewhere).  But I was overruled by the resident vegetarian and, given that we were having all sorts of other meat, I reckoned I should let her have her way.  It was actually pretty spectacular.  Rather than being, as is customary, a big, stodgy cakey of eggy potato, it was crisp on the outside whilst still being beautifully light and underdone inside.  This was actually a revelation.

Together with some padron peppers.  Not much to say about these.  They are nice.  They always are.  Five years ago you couldn’t find them in London for love or money, now you can’t go to a Spanish restaurant without having them virtually thrown at you.

Morcilla duo.  If you’re not familiar with morcilla, it is what is known as a ‘blood sausage’, or black pudding, in plain English.  Although, it’s not really like a black pudding.  It tends to be softer, more moist, and has lumps of fat or sometimes rice where the English version has oats.  But you get the idea.

These two were onion and rice.  Both excellent, and very moreish – although the differences (other than in texture) were not immediately obvious.

A short break then followed before we were presented with what had to be the finale – the potato course (or so it seemed).

Huevos rotos de corral – or ham, egg and chips as it is known over here.

We are well and truly into hangover food territory now.  To tell the truth, when I saw this on the menu I knew I recognised it from somewhere – and assumed I liked it. Then it came back to me – my first visit to Tapas 24 in Barcelona (the very best tapas restaurant I have ever been to) and one of my earliest Grubster posts.  And when it came back to me I remembered: this is not a dish I enjoy.  Not then, not now.  Again, it’s more of a case of what’s right than what’s wrong.  This is a grease fest – Spain’s answer to Canada’s poutine or Britain’s chips and gravy.  You can try all you like, it’s not sophisticated, it’s not clever and it doesn’t belong in an upscale tapas joint like Hispania.  You can try all you like, but just no.

And then, of course, patas bravas.

I mean…  Really, let’s cut to the chase.  If you like this sort of thing then you’ll like this version – very nicely done, with a fancy romesco sauce that’s full of flavour.  I personally find it hard to get excited, but the others seemed to enjoy it.

Greg, the man with the plan who suggested the place, had earlier confessed to me is worries regarding the cost.  I don’t wholly blame him – it looks from the outside (and within, with its epically tall ceilings, marble floors and wide, sparsely tabled spaces – it’s actually a very pleasant atmosphere) like it will be expensive.  When the bill came we were pleasantly surprised.  All that food (12 tapas plates and two platters) and drink (half a bottle of wine each in the end) came to about £36 a head.  Not bad – for the City.

Someone remarked that it somehow didn’t feel like authentic, Spanish tapas.  No kidding.  It wasn’t – it was high end tapas, done in a fancy, marble lined dining room.  There’s nothing wrong with that, it’s simply that you’re looking at a different beast.  And a very fine beast, in this case.

Food Porn #11: Political Pastries

Being in Barcelona, as we were, in the midst of the highly controversial Catalonian independence referendum, there was plenty of marketing, hype and merchandise going around - for both sides of the argument.  But one attempt to cash in on the will-they-won't-they vote caught my eye in particular.  The bakery next door to our hotel had a line in little pastries that were like a halfway house between yum yum donuts (in taste) and gingerbread men (in shape).  For the day of the intended referendum (which never officially came off in the end) the little doughy dudes were done up in Catalan colours and given issue flags yo wave - Yes, No and ?.  Well played.

7 Portes, Barcelona, Spain

7 Portes is one of those restaurants that's managed to basically scoop everyone else in the locale.  You ask friends where to go in Barcelona for a bit of grub, 7 Portes is likely to come up.  You pick up a guide book and flip to 'best restaurants' and you'll see 7 Portes somewhere on that page.  Restaurants like this aren’t always going to be the best – in fact, they can often be the worst – no, it's about having tapped into something bigger, some pulse of the city that means that its patrons feel like they've actually been to that city and lived the experience.  Like Café de la Monde in New Orleans, or Katz's Deli in New York or the Savoy Grill in London – if you visit you just have to go, even if it's not going to be the best meal you get in that city (except, at least in Katz's case, it's gonna come pretty darn close).

The interior of 7 Portes is definitely striking.  It's all oak beams and marble floors, reminding me of what we'd call the 'Grand Café', even if that that would make it Austrian.  Also, interestingly, around the walls are little plaques where famous people are supposed to have sat and taken their victuals.  The table to our left had house Truman Capote, and to our right Ernesto Ché Guevara.  Our table had played host to an obscure Spanish poet that I'd never heard of and now can't remember, which just goes to show that you kinda win some and lose some when it comes to which celeb had previously warmed your seat cushions.

We opened proceedings with a (mini) bottle of cava.  Cava, so bemoaned by the English snob, is big business in Catalonia on account of so much of it being produced from hereabouts.  7 Portes house drop was pretty decent, too.

GrubsterGirl kicked off with the salt cod balls, whilst I dived in with a bowl of clams.

GG's cod balls were pretty good, but sadly just too bland.  A sauce – perhaps a romesco – would have been a delightful accompaniment, even if just to give the fritters a little 'wet'.  Also, the portion size was epic.  Much more than any one person should try to eat for a starter.

My clams, on the other hand, were fab.  Being by the sea you get a good range of seafood, and 7 Portes is supposed to be one of Barca's finest purveyors of Catalan cuisine, so I chose accordingly.  The molluscs were cooked in cider and vinegar, accompanied by thick slices of roasted garlic.  They had a sweet, almost caramel-esque, richness to them that was wonderfully matched by the scent of the vinegar (fortunately, none of its sharpness came through) and the fruitiness of the cider.

For the main, I had salt cod – bacalao for the uninitiated – and a massively popular foodstuff in Spain – was fantastic.  It was cooked with garlic and smoked paprika in the traditional 'llauna' (hot plate) style, and came on a portion of spicy white bean.  Very nice.

Mrs G went on to order the millionaires' paella for her main.  This is basically just a normal paella, albeit with all of the shells and bones removed so you can just pile whole forkfuls of hot, steaming rice and meat and fish into your mouth.  Good times.

It was very good – although once again it was way way way too big – what you see there is the portion for one (I jest not).  It also had slightly too strong a base – the stock (presumably) that was used to make it was so rich and heavy that it ran the risk of (and all too often did) wholly masking the more delicately flavoured shellfish.

Puddings were a bit disappointing.  GrubsterGirl opted for vanilla ice cream with hot chocolate sauce, which is poured at your table.  They're actually very fond of this at 7 Portes, the old school style of having the waiter do much of the work at the table.

I had a similar affair, a block of vanilla ice cream covered in burnt caramel and scattered with a type of turron made from ground almonds.

Igueldo, Barcelona, Spain

Fortunately, the problem of where to get dinner in Barcelona is (it is generally considered) not one of lack of resource.  On the contrary, I understand that it is far more difficult choosing which restaurant from the myriad options rather than there being none to choose from.  The second difficulty is booking a table.

That's pretty much how we ended up at Igueldo, a restaurant in the (sort of) centre of town peddling Basque cuisine. A review courtesy of Time Out and rankings amongst their best restaurants of Barcelona helped us pick it from the crowd, and our ability to score a table made our visit a certainty.

The restaurant itself is smart and appealing, in that white and brightly lit way that restaurants on the continent can be appealing.  Service was slow though – something that always makes me a bit cross, my mood not being improved one bit by the fact that (being Englishfolk, not Spaniards / Catalans) we chose to eat at 8.30pm and so were literally the first table to be seated.  Frankly, if you can't service a restaurant with only two people in it, how will you cope when it's stuffed to the gunwales.

We were approached with little amuse bouche of local sausage wrapped in toast and served with a honey and mustard sauce.  If this sounds a little bit like something your gran might serve at Christmas drinks, it's because it was.

For starters we both chose to have the crab meat and chickpeas.  This came as a kind of chickpea stew, floating in rich, unctuous brown meat / fish soup, with a scoop of mixed, spiced crab meat and a drizzle of saffron aioli to keep it company.  I thought this was absolutely top banana.  GrubsterGirl described it as "a bit peasanty" which was, in fairness, bang on – but really very, very good with it.

For mains we diverged.  Mrs Grubster went for fillet steak and foie gras, served with a port wine reduction and dauphinoise potatoes.

A treatise in richness - so much so that, tragically, half of the (enormous) portion of liver that came with the meat had to be abandoned.  But otherwise, nice.

I went for the duck breast – largely on the basis that I always order steak and am trying to get out of that habit – which came accompanied with a jus, steamed vegetables and sobresa.

Sobresa is a soft of soft chorizo, a sausage that is so soft it can be (quite literally and often is) spread on toast.  The combination of flavours was excellent – fatty, rich duck and smoky chorizo work remarkably well together, it turns out.  The vegetables were... fine, I guess.  I can’t get excited about sliced, steamed veg, I'm afraid, and I couldn’t help wondering if something more innovative could have been offered.  But the real problem with my dish was the meat.  It tasted fine, but it was as tough as boots.  Which is odd, for duck, and I can only assume is the product of not letting it rest properly.

For pudding, I had the cream cheese soufflé with raspberry ice cream and chocolate soil.  

The chocolate soil was extremely soil-ly (almost gritty) but otherwise the dish was superb.  The soufflé was nice and light, with a twang of the soft cheese, and the raspberry sorbet was the perfect accompaniment in acting as a foil to the rich pudding.

Mrs G went for the melon granita, which came with hints of coconut, pineapple and jasmine.  Very refreshing, just what you need after a big rich meal like ours.  Although frankly I could only really taste the melon in there.

On balance, I have slightly mixed feelings about Igueldo.  I can’t really figure it out: either it's a wonderful restaurant that sometimes misses the mark (badly), or it's an outfit that has some major, structural problems that are offset by the occasional spark of genius.  Because when it was good it was brilliant - the duck / chorizo pairing, the cheese soufflé.  But things were definitely off – the tough duck, the over rich beef, the very slow service... So when it was bad, it was a bit grim.

Verdict?  Difficult to say.  Would I go back?  Not in a hurry.  Could it have been amazing, on a different night or if we'd ordered different food?  Definitely.

 - GrubsterBoy - 

Dry Martini, Barcelona, Spain

Dry Martini is a funny name for a cocktail bar, I reckon.  This is mostly because it's not really the name of a cocktail bar, it's the name of a drink.  And not just any old drink, quite possibly the most famous cocktail of all time.  If you're going to name yourself after the world's most renowned drink, you'd better be damn sure you know how to make a good one.

Fortunately, for Dry Martini, they do.  Oh, they do.

Dry Martini bills itself as a bit of a speakeasy joint.  Before that sends you running for the hills – and who wouldn’t, given just how many 'speakeasy' abomination bars there are out there, especially in the trendy zones, like Greenwich Village in NYC or Hoxton in London – I can safely say it's not like your average speakeasy.  Largely because, however much you want it to be like a speakeasy, it just isn’t.  Oh no, this is the Gentlemen's Club style of bar, and it pulls it off with aplomb.  Oak panelling covers every surface, the bar is shrouded in perfect white, starched linens, the floors are marble, the lighting is low, and every singly instrument used by the staff to mix, stir or shake your drink is solid silver.

By the way, you see that digital counter there?  That's a live counter of every dry martini they've ever served.  Wish I'd been there for number 1,000,000.

But faffing aside, we were here for one thing: a dry martini.

Mixed with Bombay Sapphire as standard (although you're welcome to ask for something different if you'd like) and the tiniest dash of French vermouth, it is then stirred – not shaken, which dilutes the drink something rotten – before being strained into glasses fresh out of the freezer.  Then there's a spritz of lemon peel (but not the peel itself) and a salty green olive gets popped in there.

Is it any good?  Yes.  It's bloody marvellous.

(This was martini number 1,044,562, by the way.)

There is no menu, which is a bit of a pain, but then I reckon – genuinely – that you could call out the name of any cocktail – certainly the name of any of the classics – and they'd know how to make it for you.  And I say that because, for our next round, we decided to test them. GrubsterGirl ordered up her soft-spot drink, a margarita, whilst I opted for a Vesper – a personal favourite of mine.  The Vesper was perfectly executed – especially with the inclusion of Cocci Americano, a slightly more herbal and bitter vermouth more reminiscent of the Kina Lillet Ian Fleming intended, rather than the modern Lillet Blanc.

Tapas 24, Barcelona, Spain

This is completely cheating because I basically wrote about this place about a year ago and now I am writing about it all over again.  But I have three reasons why I shouldn't be criticised for doing so, which I think are pretty valid and compelling:

1. Last time I didn't have my fancy camera so you had to make do with crappy iPhone pictures only (and not that many of them);
2. Last time we arrived at 12.30 and ordered all the food only to realise afterwards that there was a lunch menu from 1pm that was much better but we which we were now too full to eat; and
3. This place is absolutely flippin' amazeballs and deserves to be written about at every opportunity.

So with that in mind I am now going to write a lot about Tapas 24.

Basically, I was in Barcelona for a work thing, which ended on the Friday night (technically, Spain being Spain and keeping very Spanish social hours, it ended on the Saturday morning).  We had a preferential rate on the hotel if we wanted to stay on so I said GrubsterGirl that she should come and join me and we'd make a weekend of it.  She agreed on one proviso: we went to Tapas 24.

Tapas 24 is run by Carles Abellan, a former El Bulli chef, so it's a fair guess that he knows what he's doing.  We timed it right this time and managed to bag a seat at the bar during the peak lunchtime.  Operating out of a tiny kitchen hardly much bigger than a toilet cubicle, these lads knock together some of the best tapa I have ever had the immense pleasure of sampling.

We kicked off the proceedings with a couple of croquettas, as you do (it being Span and all).  They were good – and as freshly made as you're ever gonna get them – literally, we watched them being made and going into the fryer from where we sat.  But, frankly, Tapas 24 has so much else in store I'd recommend looking elsewhere on the menu.

Next up was the bikini sandwich.

Now, this is a quandary.  It's immensely popular in Barcelona / Catalonia but seems to be utterly unheard of elsewhere in the world.  And that's the quandary part, really, because it's bloody luverly.  A combination of soft, mozzarella-esque cheese, Iberico ham and black truffle, squished flat by a heavy toastie maker and baked so that the cheese oozes and the truffle mingles.  It is quite simply a work of art, and undoubtedly the best sandwich I have ever, ever had.  Better still, I now understand that Tapas 24's contribution is amongst the sandwich's finest examples.

Moving on to the more substantial dishes, there was a plate of corvina ceviche (corvina being a kind of salt water fish that's a little like trout).

This was delicious – absolutely fantastic, it managed somehow to be both immediately similar to a run-of-the-mill ceviche and be something unique and unexpected.

We also had the Iberico presa pork.

Presa is the end of the loin, at the neck, and is regarded as one of the finest cuts of meat from the pig.  Because of the quality and responsible rearing of the meat in Spain (and, I expect, in particular from their personal suppliers) you can have your presa rare, as opposed to the well done form in which all pig meat in the UK comes. This one was served Argentine style, with a chimichurri sauce full of herbs and spices.  Another definite hit (albeit not quite reaching the gargantuan heights of the ceviche).

For pudding we had the mango and chilli.

Another wonder, the range and matching of the flavours was intense.  A mango flavoured foam with lime zest stirred through it, topped with crushed chillies – it had it all.  But then, the surprise at the bottom was the lime grantia - slightly effervescent, almost pétillant - that just brought it all together.

But perhaps the star of the show – and possibly Tapas 24's signature dish – was the chocolate.

It's basically a beautifully smooth, heavy moose – almost unmoussey altogether, a thick chocolate cream perhaps – served with olive oil, sea salt and crisped bread.  I have almost no words for this.  The combination of a really fruity, peppery green olive oil and the chocolate, intensified by the salt, was extraordinary.  This is quite possibly the best pudding I have ever had, and definitely amongst my all time, top ten favourite dishes.  Superb.

One of the great things about Tapas 24 – and you've probably figured out by now that I think that there are a lot of great things – is the bill.  You've had food cooked for you created by a man who learned to cook in what was, at the time, the greatest restaurant in the world.  But it is far from bank breaking.  Whenever I've been asked over the last year or so where's good to eat in Barca, I always say here.  On this recent visit I was proved right.

 - GrubsterBoy -