Barrafina, king’s cross
Barrafina, king’s cross (£££)
Chain restaurants get a bad rep, but I think that’s because people assign chain restaurants to those select few eateries that butcher European cuisine. You may walk into many a chain, surrounded by garish decorations, and being delivered a menu that repeats the same inauthentic pizza or pasta again-and-again. The reason I bring this up is that this review is technically for a chain of restaurants. Alas, normally chain + European food + tapas-style, may elicit thoughts/nightmares of chewy iberico ham and overcooked rice. Or, maybe I’m just haunted by a visit to Tapas Revolution?
Lucky for me, Barrafina is as close to Tapas Revolution as Pizza GoGo is to a traditional Napoli pizzeria.
Walking in I noticed something immediately, and a large grin grew from cheek to cheek - no tables, but one excitingly long bar stretched around the kitchen. It was here I resigned to little-to-no conversation, but instead watching the chefs prepare the most delightful seafood and meats over hot coals and grills.
My downfall normally at any tapas/small plates restaurant is that it seems impossible to decide what to order; what of the many meats, seafood, cheeses, or vegetables do you order?! However, a stroke of luck was that the menu here wasn’t that big - while there was a wide range, including some excellent looking daily specials, I didn’t feel torn when ordering. With a selection in mind, and my expression clearly torn, our server advised to order around 5-6 dishes for two people. So that’s what we did.
First to arrive were two of the daily specials, chorizo and manchego croquettes and the hispi cabbage. One of the joys of sitting at the bar, facing the kitchen and the chefs, is that each dish that goes by you’re thinking “is that mine?”, and then when it finally is yours you get a little rush of adrenaline (or at least, I did). The croquettes were crispy on the outside, knife-scraping ASMR crispy, but wonderfully soft and creamy in the inside - warm and packed with flavour, the few bites they consisted of were marriage of textures and deep Spanish flavours.
The hispi cabbage deserves a paragraph of its own. I’m possibly so obsessed because whilst it’s very easy to enjoy croquettes, or squid, or any number of complex dishes, seldom can an ingredient hold itself so highly. The cabbage was charred and topped with chopped assorted nuts and dressed simply in oil. Not too charred that all you taste is ‘burn’, you could taste the (literal) layers to the dish, from the sweeter notes of the inner-leaves to the deeper charred notes visible. All of this mixed with the accompaniment of roasted chopped nuts, and the dressing give a final well rounded, and at times slightly acidic, taste. All in all - genius.
As we were happily ooo-ing and aaaah-ing over the first two dishes, the drama queen of the meal came. The classic tortilla, a golden crown adorned with flaky salt. Such a drama queen requires the adequate attention, hence the unashamed cut down the centre to reveal the runny centre. We decided to go classic here, no filling, just the flavour of egg and salt to appreciate (and appreciate we did). A range of soft and runny of the inside to the crispy of the outside, it was a egg executed wonderfully
To no surprise, the next dish that came was another ‘ingredient-in-the-spotlight’ dish. Wild mushrooms and salted egg yolk. Here, the earthiness of the wild mushrooms were hitting a great note to contrast the otherwise raw flavours of the meal so far. Texturally soft and delicate, the mushrooms were cooked and seasoned wonderfully, with top-notes of paprika against the otherwise earthy flavours of the dish. My recommendation here is to use the egg yolk as a dip, to help season each bite that little bit more.
Our final dish was the heavy-hitter of the lot, the meatiest dish that we ordered. Octopus á Feira (a traditional Galician dish), a slightly sweet, slightly spicy dish of grilled octopus, adorned with paprika on a bed of crispy potatoes. Cooked so it was tender, and not rubbery like many a place, the octopus was a joy to eat, with each piece perfectly kissed by the flames of the grill it was cooked in - a delight for all of it’s taste, appearance, and texture.
Like any good tapas restaurant, the flow of dishes was orchestrated perfectly, with plenty of food always in front of us. With all your sense delighted by the food you are eating, or the food you are watching and listening being prepared, if you have not yet visited Barrafina, you must now. Plus, with price tags that won’t break the bank, there’s a menu full of excuses to visit again and again.