Shoreditch, Spanish Restaurant Guide

Star chef Dani Garcia opened his first UK venture in Shoreditch’s Mondrian Hotel a couple of years ago, to mixed reviews. This up-and-down sentiment continues in feedback to date – some reporters think the Spanish cuisine – paellas, roast and grilled fish and meat, tapas – is “very good” (but encountered “an empty room on a Sunday lunch”); other well-travelled types thought it “underwhelming compared to the wonders of his native Andalusian restaurants”.

“Reliable tapas in handy locations” is the USP of this 16-year-old trio with a flagship near King’s Cross station (by far the best known) and offshoots in Shoreditch and Monument. But while they’re “decent enough”, they offer “standard fayre” – it’s “nothing exceptional”.

“Simple things are done very, very well on a smoking fire and every dish is a wow!” at Tomos Parry’s Shoreditch superstar, which – now five years old – has proved “a superb addition to the London dining scene” .“It’s casual in style, but the truly original cooking” and “enthusiastic and informed staff” generate “a real buzz about the place” and create a “cosy” atmosphere in what might otherwise might seem a “somewhat lacklustre” and tightly packed space (on the first floor, above Smoking Goat downstairs). As well as the signature turbot for which the restaurant is named, many dishes here are praised in reports (“spider crab toast to die for…”; “clever duck rice, like paella…”; “beautifully flavoursome and light Basque cheesecake”).

The Broadgate Circle tapas bar from the trailblazer of contemporary Hispanic cooking in London provides “excellent food in a modern environment” – even if aficionados of the more atmospheric original insist it “doesn’t replicate the better José across the river” in Bermondsey.