The cool typeface and designer wooden lampshades drew us into this fairly new tapas place on King St. See. All that nonsense really does work.
They hint at a restaurant that wants to deliver something a little smarter than your everyday local tapas bar. After our visit, I reckon they are about half way there.
Whilst the lampshades are nice, the bulbs beneath them don't give out much light. We needed my flashlight app to read the menu. I'm all for an ambience thats a little more seductive but if I wanted Dans Le Noir I'd make the schlep to East London.
At least the darkness focussed our attention more keenly on the tastes and textures of the food we ordered. Some of it was very good. The octopus in particular was nice and meaty and a touch of smoked paprika really helped set it off. But much of it was hit and miss. The croquettes had a good crispy coating, but the ham and cheese filling was a little indistinct. Chorizo had a good kick to it, but the tortilla tasted a bit tired, like it had been hanging around too long. Prawns were tough nuggets. Sirloin steak with mushrooms, asparagus and a soy dressing didn't really work.
It wasn't too busy when we turned up on a weekday evening, but the two waitresses were buzzing around like stressed-out busy bees and refused to look up when we were trying to get their attention. We ordered some bread. It was the last dish that came. Bit useless. Getting a glass of wine was a struggle. It all added up to a bit of an underwhelming experience
It's great that they are aspiring to something more exciting than bog standard tapas, but a bit more concentration on getting the simple things right wouldn't go amiss. Attentive service, a few smiles, the dimmer switch turned up a notch or two and a more expert approach to the old favourites like tortilla. It might all sound a little bit humdrum and not what gets them going but nice lampshades and typeface will only get you in once. For repeat custom those are the bits that need work on. read more