Brindisa: Discovering Spain Under the Skylight

By I.W.

I came to Brindisa open-minded, and I will admit, a little unschooled. My own table had long been laid with French, Japanese and English kitchens, and what Spanish food I knew came mostly from tourist terraces in Majorca and Marbella, where the sangria tends to arrive faster than anything worth remembering. I had simply never been shown what Spain could really do in the kitchen. My visit to Brindisa put that right.

The welcome had a good deal to do with it. I was met at the door and shown to a table at the back beneath a skylight — that's both a rare and popular thing in this corner of Soho, a room with daylight of its own. Broadwick Street is one of the most historic streets in the district, and remaking an old building here into something that reads as an authentic rural Spanish eatery cannot have been simple, yet the illusion held from the first step inside. The room had been parcelled out with tact: a more traditional front given over to a lively party, the calmer skylit end left to the rest of us.

What struck me before a single plate arrived was how genuinely clean the place felt — cared-for and fresh rather than scrubbed into sterility, a distinction more restaurants lose than keep. Neither aroma nor soundtrack was permitted to dominate. A soft run of chilled jazz kept the room company while the open, canteen-style kitchen faced the diners. All the kitchen staff wore gloves! Strings of dried red chillies — or were they Galician Padrón peppers? — hung like bunting off the kitchen walls, and in one corner a fire extinguisher stood sentinel beside them, as though the cooks had taken peppers’ own heat quite literally. It made me laugh, which is no bad overture to a dinner.

The staff steered me first towards a Brindisa gazpacho, poured in two guises: a Virgin at £5 or a Bloody, spiked with vodka, at £9. I took the sober version, it was far too early, and met a small revelation — cool, clean-edged, the tomatoes ripe and properly judged, blended to a perfection I had not thought the soup capable of. Gazpacho has long been my favourite, and this was the best by far that I had tasted in years.

Next, the Perelló Gordal olives, hand-stuffed and lifted with orange, guindilla and oregano. They remain a popular starter across Soho, and one bite explains why: plump, meaty, savoury, precisely the thing to occupy the hands while a table makes up its mind.

Then came Pan con Tomate, much recommended by staff; its Catalan coca bread crowned with Jamón Ibérico de Bellota. Here I must depart from the received wisdom that the tomato should lead. On my plate the acorn-fed ham led, and led handsomely — draping the bread and dissolving on the tongue, the tomato and oil doing the supporting work beneath. It was, without hedging, the finest mouthful of the early courses.

My guest and I shared a Tabla Mixta, and it was here that Brindisa's real talent — sourcing, assembling, marrying one thing to another — declared itself. A member of staff took us through the board with the ease of someone raised among its makers, naming each chorizo and cheese as though introducing old friends. One cheese fairly surprised me: a blue I would have expected to be French, until I was told, to my honest astonishment, that it was Spanish to the core. A modest, humbling, and thoroughly enjoyable one.

By now we were nearly full, and yet no conscience could permit skipping the dish for which the kitchen is best loved: Gambas al Ajillo, six king prawns in chilli, garlic and olive oil. They reached the table still spitting in their pan and demanded a moment's restraint before the first attempt. The wait was well repaid. The prawns were firm and sweet, the oil gone deep and savoury with garlic and other spices I could not recognise, and every so often a coarse crystal of sea salt hitting the tastebuds — an almost intoxicating build of flavour I have not stopped thinking about since.

The octopus followed: Pulpo a la Gallega, hand-caught off Galicia. The flesh yielded tenderly, the seasoning judged just so, and the side dishes most excellent.

A vegetable course, ordered from pure curiosity, proved no afterthought at all. Coliflor a la Plancha, chargrilled cauliflower, held its ground against cured ham and octopus without apology. That a plainly vegetarian plate should do so says a good deal about where this kitchen sets its bar.

For pudding, a burnt Basque cheesecake: its crown scorched almost to bitterness, its centre still trembling, cool, consistent and barely sweet, exactly as I would want it. Beside it, a glass of Brindisa Ancestral, the house's own softly sparkling wine, chilled to a fine edge. Cake and glass together was a perfect ending for our lunch.

I have dwelt on the plates because they earned it, but the manner of the thing mattered as much. The portions judged themselves; the courses came in an order that never crowded the table; and the whole room seemed unobtrusively busy with just looking after two guests as though we were the only ones in it. What I had taken for a cuisine of oil and chilli turned out to be something far more varied and far more considered — fine food, in truth, at prices and amid a warmth a good deal gentler than that ambition would lead you to expect. Serious without a whisker of the snooty. I came knowing little and left already planning my next visit, with friends and family, for the sake of anyone who still believes Spanish food begins and ends with a tourist paella.

Brindisa Tapas Soho, 46 Broadwick Street, London W1F 7AE. brindisatapas.com