Barrafina. Discover Authentic Tapas In London's Soho.

David Gerrie reviews Barrafina, London’s mini chain of Spanish tapas restaurants.

Back in the late 1960s, my chum Nigel and I spent many a summer in the then-ungentrified Costa Brava fishing village of Llafranc, about an hour’s drive south of Gerona airport.

The era of the bargain package holiday had just kicked in, but already its effect was being felt in Spanish eateries. All-day full-English fry-ups sloshed down with litres of gassy Euro-fizz or acidic sangria were fast becoming the order of the day, but not so in this sleepy little idyll.

We would breakfast on cold-cooked mussels in tiny waterfront bars; on the side would be near-poisonous frothy milky coffee with a healthy shot of Spanish brandy (Fundador if we were hard-up, Terry if we were a bit flush) and some churros.

Lunch in those hazy days was somewhat academic. But dinner? We ate whatever the locals were cooking up. Kidneys in sherry, monkfish in a seafood nage, pigeons flamed in brandy, rabbits braised in beer or fresh sardines seared on the plancha. The after-midnight hours ended at an open-air bar with a (slightly) sobering doorstep slice of bread, rubbed with tomatoes, garlic and olive oil and chucked onto the bars of a wood-fired griddle.

In the decades since, nuevas cocinas has become the go-to option if you’re on the Costas, interested in food and are nugget, burger and pizza averse. And that’s all well, good and delicious. So it’s heartening to know there are places this side of the Channel where you can go and find the sort of stuff you remember from back in the day.

And it was with this in mind that same chum and I headed to Barrafina’s walk-in-only Soho outpost in Dean Street (they have others in Adelaide Street, Drury Lane, Coal Drops Yard and Borough Yards) – a bit of ya visto, if you will.

This mini-chain is determinedly old-school in its offerings and, indeed, in its design. Witness the familiar zinc-topped bar, the chefs’ work stations a mere three or four feet in front of you, side-by-side with the fishy offerings of the day nestling on a mountain of crushed ice. There are a few tables outside, but also a lot of exhaust fumes. So on a blazing hot day, best to opt for some air-conditioning and the padded stools lining the counter.

Nigel arrived as a sherry virgin, so straight away we asked if we could be taken through a tasting session, from dry to sweet, as we sampled our way through the menu. Chilled glasses and bottles duly appeared as we ummed and aah-d over the success of different pairings with the various dishes we’d ordered.

The refreshing pan con tomate (£8.50) was a much more refined affair than those griddled slabs from our past, with the tomatoes having been peeled and seeded and topped with oh-so-finely-snipped chives. The bone-dry Manzanilla en Rama ‘Hart Bros’ Hidalgo La Gitan (£10.50/glass) was the perfect partner.

Next came a heaped pile of chipirones, the Basque speciality of tiny breaded and deep-fried baby squid, with a bowl of tangy mustard mayonnaise (£17.00), and a vinegary white anchovy tostada, both of which melted in the mouth with a good few sips of the more flinty Fino ‘Del Puerto’ Lustau (£10.50). So much, in fact, we decided to add a bowl of cockles a fino (£18.00), the meaty little lovelies doused in the warm wine.

Ready for something slightly sturdier, we opted for croquetas, this time appearing as breaded spheres stuffed with melting béchamel studded with prawns (£9.00) and ham (£8.50), which proved a match for the more robust Palo Cortado ‘Peninsula’ Lustau (£11.00). An almost-meaty Amontillado ‘Tio Diego’ Valdespino (£11.00) provided an excellent bedfellow to an extremely generous platter of thinly-sliced Paletilla Ibérica de Bellota ham (£22.00), that most delicate example of Spanish charcuterie.

On to our mains, with Nigel opting for a daily special of a large whole black bream (£30.00), much meatier than its silver sister, scorched on the plancha and served drenched in tomatoes, garlic and olive oil. I went for the Arroz de Carabineros (£30.00), a mound of almost sticky rice cooked in the most unctuous of seafood broths and topped with a couple of what are one of Spain’s most prized delicacies – prawns which are the same deep red colour before and after cooking. Sucking the particularly sweet juices from the heads is obligatory!

These all needed something a little more gluggable than our sherries, and the staff were right to suggest a Hart Bros Albarino 2024 Rias Baixas, much fuller than a lot of this Galician favourite can prove.

We stuck with a couple of classics for dessert – a sumptuous, crema Catalana with a crackable caramelised lid (£8.00) and a Tarta de Queso (£9.00), a sort of gloopier, less burnished and altogether superior version of the ubiquitous Basque cheesecake. And we still had one sherry left to taste! So we ended our blast from the past lunch with a rich Pedro Ximinez Emilio Hidalgo (£13.00), often described as alcoholic prune juice, but the perfect pairing for puds – and a finale to a meal which reminded two old pals of what first made them fall in love with what can come out of a traditional Spanish kitchen.