Fitzrovia, Spanish Restaurant Guide

This “buzzy but very noisy” Hispanic quartet (in Marylebone, Farringdon, Victoria and Canary Wharf) offers a “good range of tapas” and “interesting wines by the glass and the bottle”. They still have plenty of admirers as a “reliable” option, even if they “no longer provide the novelty or the high standards they once did”.

No-one, it seems, told star Spanish chef Quique Dacosta (whose Alicante restaurants hold three Michelin stars) that you don’t launch an ambitious foodie venue just off the shopping hell of Oxford Street. This impressive-looking four-year-old – complete with a large open kitchen – offers high quality grills, with the speciality being a selection of paella dishes. Feedback remains quite limited (not helped by its location) – neither huge criticism, nor huge praise is present.

“Not a place for a quiet tête-à-tête: instead climb up to the bar and dig into a mixture of fine Scottish fish and seafood, prepared as Spanish-style tapas”. That’s the culinary mashup at Stephen Lironi’s new “Soho seafood heaven” – a “lively, albeit slightly cramped” space with “lovely and engaging service and a fun atmosphere” (“as long as you are sitting upstairs” – downstairs is “a bit small and dingy”). On the downside, it can seem a bit “hyped” – “they need to smarten up if they are going to charge such high prices when you are perched on a bar stool”.