The All In One Ultimate Restaurant Interview: Barrafina

Since opening in 2007 Barrafina has been the capital's most popular tapas bar, with the no-reservations L-shaped restaurant crammed full of customers every night of the week. In 2014 they opened a second site near Covent Garden, but the original is a re-entry this year on our top 100 Ultimate Restaurant List at number 28. Head chef Nieves Barragan shares her recipe for arroz negro, a classic Spanish dish translated as 'black rice', because of the colour of the squid ink.

What does Barrafina do that nowhere else does?
In Barrafina you get to taste the whole of Spain – if you want something from Galicia, Madrid or Cadiz, we have it.
 
What advice would you give to chefs starting out?
If you’re truly hungry to succeed you will, and believe me you’ll enjoy it at the same time.
 
What food is your guilty pleasure?
Nutella on toast.
 
What has your worst kitchen experience been?
Like all jobs there are highs and lows, but with any negative experience I always take the positive out of it and learn from it.
 
Which new restaurants have excited you recently?
Nuno Mendes’ Taberna do Mercado, Bao on Lexington Street in Soho and I really, really want to go to Etxebarri in Spain, which was number 13 on the world’s 50 best restaurants list.
 
What does a restaurant need to do to stay successful for as long as Barrafina has?
We are very, very focused – it’s essential to have a properly trained team, I cannot emphasise enough how important training is. Also one of my mantras is that the small details make big differences.
 
Do you have a signature recipe you can share with us?
Arroz Negro (serves 4 or 8 as a starter)
 
Ingredients:
220g cleaned squid
3 tbsp olive oil
4 spring onions, trimmed and finely chopped
350ml Fino or Manzanilla sherry
2 shallots, peeled and finely diced
1 litre fish stock
350g Bomba or Arborio rice
8 sachets of squid ink
Large knob of butter
Sea salt and freshly ground pepper
 
To serve:
2 small squid, cleaned (optional)
2 tsp light olive oil (optional)
Small handful of flat leaf parsley, chopped (optional)
Extra virgin olive oil, to drizzle
Lemon wedges
 
Method:
Dice the prepared squid. Heat half the olive oil in a large, heavy-based frying pan and fry the squid until golden and all the liquid has evaporated. Add the spring onions and 150ml sherry and let bubble until the sherry has reduced totally. Remove from the pan and set aside.
 
Heat the remaining olive oil in the pan and gently fry the shallots for 10 minutes until softened and golden. Meanwhile, bring the stock to a simmer in another pan and keep it at a lower simmer.
 
Add the rice to the shallots and fry for 2-3 minutes, then pour in the rest of the sherry and stir to deglaze. Add a couple of ladlefuls of stock and cook, stirring every so often, until the liquid is absorbed. Continue to add stock in this way until the rice is nearly cooked.
 
In the meantime, prepare the garnish if required. Slice the squid pouches into rings, keeping the tentacles whole. Heat the olive oil in a frying pan, add the squid and pan-fry for a few minutes until tender. Throw in the chopped parsley and set aside.
 
Add the squid ink to the rice, with a little more stock if necessary, and stir well. At this stage the rice should be perfectly cooked. Stir in a large knob of butter and season with salt and pepper to taste.
 
Serve the rice in warm bowls, drizzled with extra virgin olive oil and topped with the pan-fried squid if using. Serve with lemon wedges.