Bar Pepito

Pubs are everywhere and wine bars are not hard to fine but a sherry bar – and one serving tasty tapas - has an air of distinction and this is where Bar Pepito stepped up to the mark by becoming London’s first. It looks out on a large courtyard, reached via an alley off the Kings Cross end of York Way, and most evenings this courtyard is packed with office workers happy to be on their feet, quaffing drinks from Camino’s bar and loudly socializing. Bar Pepito’s outdoor seating, around three upended sherry barrels under giant yellow umbrellas, offers a secluded position for a quieter chat but to thoroughly escape the al fresco gregariousness step inside the tiny, bodega-like interior. Here there are three more barrel tops with stools and while the confined space more or less makes the sharing of food mandatory this is only proper. A tapas bar is all about picking and mixing food informally; it is not the place for a blow-out meal or a candle-lit dinner with your sweetheart.

Sherry is a complex drink, running the gamut from extra dry to almost super sweet, and different types go best with particular food tastes. Bar Pepito’s menu is designed to be educational in this respect, starting with Sherry Flights that combine three different 50ml measures (£7.90 to £17.50) and suggest a suitable tapa; perfect for a quickie reconnaissance any time of the day or night, alone or in company. But one tapa for three sherries is stretching the compatibility concept and a better introduction to sherry culture is the tasting menu (£30 each): six measures, each with a matching tapa. The show gets going with a very light and exceedingly dry sherry that works well with the salty taste of the anchovy served on a skewer with pickled chilli, a huge Goral olive and tomato. This is followed by a glass of Puerto Fino Reserve, a slightly richer taste but still noticeably dry, perfect with escalivada (grilled aubergine with pepper and onion). The drawback to a tasting menu – choices being made for you -- arose when the next tapa was supposed to be duck liver paté. This did not appeal to me or my two companions but the helpful Sicilian waiter obligingly made a swap for olives, garlic bread and a smoked Basque sheep cheese which came with little oblongs of quince jelly on biscuits. He assured us – and he was dead right – that this would go equally well with the scheduled Amontillado, amber in colour and with an agreeably spiky flavour. What came next was a lovely Oloroso, a dark sherry with a hint of brandy in its warm taste, but it couldn’t redeem the slices of paper-thin chorizo that came with it. They were sweet, not fatty, but chorizo is an acquired taste and I haven’t acquired it yet. The final two sherries were rich and sumptuous but these were fine as accompaniments to first a cheese and then a chocolate finale.

The tasting menu can be recommended but if your stomach requires more than small plates of tapas can provide it would be wise to consider the smoked fillet steak (£14) or one of the cured meats (£6 to £16). The best of these is Iberian ham (Jamón ibérico), from the Iberian black pig that feeds free-range in oak groves, and the highest quality is de Bellota (Spanish for acorn), so called because its diet becomes almost exclusively one of acorns.

Bar Pepito has a lot going for it and a visit should change your attitude towards the drinking of sherry. You can still drink a beer here, a lager from Seville (5%), or Spanish wine by the glass (£5-£9), carafe, or bottle (£18-£35) and there are two superb brandies available to finish off an evening – but the real point of coming to Bar Pepito is to learn something about sherry, enjoy some edibles and sit comfortably with a friend or two while everyone else is standing around in a courtyard clutching, like missals, their glasses.

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