Restaurant: Brindisa
Location: Soho
By Boeing: 5041 miles
By Boris Bike: 0.2 miles
Traditional British tapas was little better than fragranced stodge intended to soak up jug after jug of Sangria. Going out for a Spanish meal was an attempt to liven up the grey of a British winter with some Mediterranean colour. The food itself was often disappointing being a local rendering of flavours yet to be mastered. But in the food revolution since the millennium tapas has been elevated to far more sophisticated level suiting the relaxed, informal, time poor dining experience cosmopolitan Londoners wanted. The menus branched out from chorizo, patatas bravas and Spanish omelettes to showcase a greater range of regional delicacies.
As a business model, tapas borders on genius. Selling taster samples at the same price as a full plate with a quick turnaround ensures high yields. It is easy to spend £50 and leave bewildered and still hungry. But such is the London restaurant scene these days. Brindisa is small, welcoming and convivial with most punters sat around the bar. It is an intimate space with more of the ambience of a coffee shop than a formal restaurant. Handsome barmen and polished steel seem to set everyone at ease. The menu is enticing and varied, with lovers of shellfish particularly well catered for. You are no one in London these days unless you consume Galician Octopus thrice a week. The curling tentacles look deeply unappealing, like gnawing on the calloused hands of a plasterer. As ever I favour the meat dishes, which are consistently succulent and flavoursome.
In such a welcoming atmosphere the volume of middle class chatter is deafening and no conversation is private when you are all bunched around the bar. Spanish dining is a gregarious activity, almost the antithesis of the sometimes starched conservatism of high end French cuisine. The food is a distraction from conversation, albeit a very welcome one. It feels a world away from the Spain of the Costa Brava where fat, peeling ex pats order English breakfasts at bars owned by footballers. Brits are starting to see Spain for more than its sun and sand and cuisine is playing a part in its re-invention in the English psyche.
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