Descending the path, worn smooth from centuries of feet, and gently curling from street level into the restaurant, I’m sat at a table that has been custom built round a pillar supporting the vaulted ceiling. I sense the warm, calm purposefulness of the team. It’s disarming. Reading the beginning of the menu I notice my post “tough week at work” snark has already de-escalated by a good 85%. In fact, I feel nice.

I take a moment to scan the room: some people appear to have arrived from work for a catch up with friends, others are already enthusiastically reaching over for more shared indulgences with relatives for a birthday perhaps? I’m getting date night energy from another couple. Wherever my attention falls, there’s an air of relaxed belonging and authenticity. It’s a place you could go “just because” that’s absolutely special enough for an occasion, and not one which has you worrying what to wear or whether your head’s in the right space for it. People appear to have forgotten themselves for a minute – fully present in their moment of comfort and satisfaction.

The menu’s annoyingly good…it’ll take a good few trips to try all the things I need to. If I forfeit bread items I can order three of the tapas and work from there. There’s tempting delights I’d be disappointed to see missing from a tapas menu, and whilst I’m torn forsaking them, there’s so many other plates where you can detect something of the person who wrote it and brought it to life. Interesting, since each dish almost reads like a list of items.

There are some exciting meaty treats on the menu, but there’s also an uncommonly high proportion of dishes that make you think someone might actually value vegetables and treat them as an entity in their own right. Novel. I bet they can be trusted to cook fish without ruining it. That thought informs my priorities on this occasion.

First out is a fillet of sea trout in pastrami seasoning. It’s delicately cooked and has audibly crispy skin even though it’s sat in parsnip purée. Liquor from the skinny candy-striped beetroot pickles leak into that puree in a way that feels deliberate and elegant in its simplicity. It could be overbearing if the sugar, acid, salt spectrum was off, but the dish is entirely harmonious. Three forks in and the rest of the food arrives.

There’s some roasted savoy laid in a rich and comforting sesame sauce, bringing a low-fi tahini umami. Between the chilli seasoned outer leaf “crispy seaweed” to the subtle kohlrabi, I’m bounced through a series of flavour profiles – finally hitting a tingle of chilli oil at the circumference and feeling entirely ready to go back round again. I imagine it scaled up to go with a roast chicken and honestly feel quite smug about my fantasy leftovers.

The smoked heritage carrot tartare carries a smoky sweetness reminiscent of a good whisky. One aged in a port or sherry barrel thanks to the presence of pomegranate. I’m a geek so I asked…The smoke was from olive buds. A typically Mediterranean choice for smoking but also a sustainable choice as it’s a bi-product of pruning. I’d initially wondered about the textures. I discovered not the bright crunch of crudités, or the soft and mellow casserole carrots, but a halfway house. There’s dots of aioli I’d love to be either taller or added at more frequent intervals adorning the top. The crunchy vehicle for all this, are seed crackers with pops of cumin, that moves on to poppy seed and nutty vibes just as I’m wondering if the cumin’s getting a bit shouty.

They’re all decent portions, so any hopes of ordering one more tapas dissipates. I’m side eyeing the pile of inside out chicken wings of the couple across from me though, so I enjoy them vicariously in lieu of bulgogi mushrooms or beef rump cap…next time.

More information can be found here: https://www.ibericotapas.com