Rickmansworth, Spanish Restaurant Guide

“Avoiding a typical pub-forgettable menu” – this Victorian tavern on a prominent corner overlooking Acton Green Common “offers a tapas selection of real quality and a lovely interior to boot”. That’s it on a good day, though – it’s not consistent and some “unexceptional” results dragged on the rating a little this year. You can eat anywhere in the pub, although the grand dining room at the rear is the most comfy location, and “the garden is very pleasant on a fine day”.

Under a picturesque Georgian terrace, close to St John-in-Hampstead church, this basement tapas bar is a prime destination in the area thanks to its “consistently delicious food, attentive staff” and “lovely atmosphere”. The menu adds Italian elements to its Spanish core, and there’s a “very good wine selection”.

“Refined” and “interesting” tapas (“the Iberico pork is the best thing on the menu”) married with creative cocktails and sherries are the hallmark of this high street three-year-old, from a duo with Heston B pedigree. Amongst a high volume of reports in our annual diners’ poll, it attracted the odd critic this year (“the menu could do with changing”), but even they “simply loved the fact that there is a buzzing, good Spanish restaurant in the locale – a rare treat in this neck of the woods (which is why it is always full!)”.

In Ealing Broadway's new Dickens Yard development, this Spanish venture with South American influences from its Colombian chef was already a hot ticket locally before a rave review from Giles Coren in The Times brought it to wider attention. The name means "hopscotch" in Spanish.

“The original Salt Yard in W1 used to be one of London’s best new tapas restaurants” – but it opened over 15 years ago and “the subsequent roll-out of the brand as multiple branches” under Urban Pubs & Bars “has seen quality drop quite a lot”. As “a pleasant option for well-produced Med-inspired dishes”, they maintain a fair number of fans, if without the pizzazz once conjured by the name. The year-old branch near the entrance to Westfield is the highest rated, and the newest near Borough Market is also seen as “a handy addition to the group”.

“An excellent location overlooking the River Thames makes the Richmond branch very special if you are able to bag one of its outside tables on a balmy summer evening”; and it’s a highpoint of this chain run by a firm of well-known Iberian food importers. On the plus-side, its branches are generally “buzzy”, with “tasty” and “authentically flavoured” tapas. On the minus-side, for all the “high quality ingredients”, dishes can end up “indifferent” and “pricey for the size of the portions”; and “service can be a little too uneven”.

“A perfect rabbit stew” was one of the options given the thumbs up this year at this black-and-white gabled, 1930s pub in central Highgate, where many of the dishes have a Spanish spin. Notable features include a large garden area and even its own theatre upstairs.