Lancashire, Spanish Restaurant Guide

“In the centre of this undistinguished Lancashire town, this two-tiered venue with its open kitchen comes close to taking your breath away” – “quite what Ramsbottom ever did to deserve such a bustling, authentic tapas bar remains a mystery”. “Sparkling dishes (“often relying on specialist Spanish ingredients”) are as fresh and delicious as they come”, prices are “encouraging” and “the friendly staff make eating in this sometimes packed restaurant a pleasure”. “It’s also probably the only Andalusian bar in the UK to which you can travel by steam train!”

Levanter’s “brilliant” sibling is nowadays “really two restaurants in one” since they expanded into the adjacent shop and added a ‘comedor’ (dining room) for larger dishes – suckling pig, etc – cooked in the wood-fired Pereruela oven. By most accounts “the original bar half is definitely better” thanks to its “interesting pintxos (some on colourful display along the bar, some to order) and small plates”. The more substantial dishes “can seem to turn out less interesting than they sound”, though, leaving an “overrated” impression with one or two diners.