Randomness Guide to London Menu

A tapas bar on Goodge Street in Fitzrovia.

This is a long, thin space with dark wood and extensive cabinets filled with wine bottles for atmosphere. There are large tables up the back of the room, with a bar and stools nearer the entrance. It's far more of a tapas bar than a restaurant, with food available all day. Service was mostly fine, certainly not unfriendly, and tap water was brought out in a jug, although one of the waiters took a good five or so minutes to get back to us when we asked to order more food despite there being few other people present.

There's an extensive wine list where they pick out a few of their favourites by glass, as well as a notably lengthy sherry list. All the wines we tried were of a good quality.

Cured meats, cold tapas and cheese are served all day, but seafood, meat, salad and vegetables are only served from noon-3:30pm and from 5:30pm-10:30pm photo of menu in November 2009. On their Tuesday early-evening visit, Ewan and others sampled plenty of the plates and found them to be mostly of a high standard.

From the bar menu were the boquerones en vinagre (marinated anchovies, £3.50) photo and some tasty zanahorias a la Sevillana (Seville spiced carrot, £1.50) photo, fetchingly served in a decorated metal mug. From the cured meats menu, the Lomo Iberico Cebo (£4.50 for 40g) photo, Chorizo Extra Bellota (£3.50 for 50g) photo and Morcilla (£2 for 40g) photo were all fine. Empanadillas of, respectively, tuna photo and vegetables photo (£3.50 each) were both tasty, and croquetas de jamón y pollo (ham and chicken croquettes, £1.25) photo were particularly good.

When the rest of the menu became available, we ordered a few more plates. The mollejas con alcachofas (sweetbreads with artichokes, £6.50) photo were particularly tasty, but the one vegetable dish we tried, escalivada (charcoal-grilled aubergine, pepper and onion, £4.50) photo, was slightly disappointing.

See also:

• London Eating comments