This Shoreditch restaurant has become something of a fixture over its 15 year career. The menu has classic Spanish and Portuguese dishes, including plenty of tapas. Very recently they introduced weekend lunches, and currently there's a bargain £25 deal on.
The wine list has many acclaimed names, but there are also some pretty impressive aperitifs such as the Rebujito. It's got plenty of dry Fino sherry but enough lemon juice, lemonade and soda to make it a refreshing summer's drink.
We start with tapas. Juicy mussels are smothered in vinaigrette - chopped peppers, shallots, and Spanish sherry vinegar ooze all over them. A plate of mild goat's cheese is garnished with salty black olives and fresh marjoram, generously drizzled with olive oil. There's grilled spicy chorizo, and slices of cured, acorn-fed pork loin are wonderfully fatty. Ham croquettes are rich and doughy, as are the Portuguese salt cod and potato cakes.
A large yellowfin tuna steak is fried just so, ruby-red on the inside and topped with green beans and slow cooked onions, with enough olive oil it may well have been ladled over. Grilled loin of Iberian pork is also rare, served over crushed 'patatas pobres' which translates as 'poor man's potatoes' as they're usually cooked with leftovers. Here they're anything but, dished up with green peppers, onions and white wine.
It's such a feast we pass up on dessert, but sweets stick to Iberian staples like Portuguese custard tarts and tarta de Santiago, an almond cake from the north of Spain.
The food is wonderfully faithful to its origins, and the menu is absurdly priced given its outstanding calibre.
The £25 weekend lunch menu is offered in conjunction with Mr Hyde, and includes an aperitif, three tapas, a main course, dessert and coffee. It's available till June 19th.
