Fitzrovia, Spanish Restaurant Guide

2019 Review: This “fantastic, traditional-style tapas restaurant” in Fitzrovia was founded in 1985, well before the contemporary tapas boom. Family-run, “humble” and “down-to-earth” – it may lack the pizzazz of its more modern Iberian competitors, but is “very good value”.

With its quality mix of Spanish and Italian tapas, this cosy bar/restaurant near Goodge Street was a foodie trailblazer when it opened in 2005. The buzz has moved on over the years, but it’s still a worthwhile, well-run venue with interesting food.

“A wonderful menu with a good choice of tapas to suit all tastes” again wins recommendations for this buzzy and good-value bar on Goodge Street.

“High quality, reasonably priced tapas” – “as traditionally Spanish as ever and properly prepared” – alongside an “interesting selection of Spanish wines (many from less usual wine areas)” is the hallmark of this group that originated in Great Portland Street 15 years ago; now joined by branches in Victoria, Canary Wharf, Marylebone, Farringdon and Leeds. “The paella had just the right degree of socarrat” (the caramelised crust on the bottom).

He has three Michelin stars back in Alicante, but Quique Dacosta’s two-floor two-year-old just north of Oxford Street is a more middle-market affair, with an extensive menu of meat, fish and vegetarian dishes whose most obvious Hispanic features are a large collection of paellas. Feedback was mixed this year, though. Some reporters had wonderful meals, but others found it “just too pricey for what it was… lovely interior, but the dishes fell a bit flat”.

2021 Review: Up-and-down reports on this “lovely” Soho haunt, specialising in wood-fired, Mediterranean, grilled dishes – part of Salt Yard Group (all of which was absorbed into the Urban Pubs portfolio in November 2018). Fans applaud the “delicious tapas from this ever-reliable family” but quite a few reports express disappointment: “maybe there’s a sense it isn’t quite what it was”.