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There must be one of those wonderful German compound nouns for the feeling of delicious unease you get when there's a queue of hungry people behind you in a restaurant, but you're not giving up your seat, no way. Something like the word for the weight you gain when you're unhappy (kummerspeck: grief bacon), or for the fear of missed opportunities (torschlusspanik: gate-shutting panic).
- Barrafina
- 10 Adelaide Street,
- London
- WC2N 4HZ
- 020-7440 1456
-
no booking except for private dining room). Open Mon-Sat, noon-3pm, 5-11pm. About £50 a head (unless you're greedy and stay hours, like I did), plus drinks and service.
Food 9/10
Atmosphere 8/10
Value for money7/10
We've been perched on our bar stools at the new Barrafina for hours (the owners say it's in Covent Garden, but it's more like Charing Cross). The backs of our necks are prickling from the hard stares we're getting from the queue. It's a tapas bar, there are no reservations, but that's another of the many beauties of this place: you come in fancying a smattering of expertly cut Ibérico ham and seven courses later you're looking at a sizable bill and ortiguillas (sea anemones) or deep-fried lamb's brain.
Owners Sam and Eddie Hart have said that Barcelona's Cal Pep was the inspiration for Barrafina. And although their new place has the requisite frantic, rackety quality, it's way more sophisticated. The design is sleek and cool. There's so much marble, you worry that if you stay in the loos too long, you might end up cured like lardo di Colonnata.
Of course, you don't have to eat as much as we do, but that would be to miss out on a truly sybaritic eating experience. The food is sensational. How, genuinely, do you get chicken wings with this combination of juicy flesh and crisped skin crust? Add a Canarian-inspired mojo picón sauce – sharp, peppery, spiked with fennel seeds – and watch me swoon. Croquetas, stuffed with thick béchamel and crab rather than the more usual jamón, are unutterably good, rich and marine.
I've had Madrid's famous bocadillos de calamares at their natural home, El Brillante, across the road from the Atocha train station. But Barrafina's tiny versions are so much better, the tender, unbattered squid trailing a fragrance of smoke, the bun cushiony. Add caramelised onions and a mound of fresh shoestring fries – like elves' chipsticks – and it's a crack snack.
There's a blackboard of daily specials featuring duck, all supple meat and crisp skin, in a sherry-laced jus with peas so fresh they pop in my mouth. And, at £6.50, contender for world's most expensive tomatoes: juicy beefhearts scattered with salt crystals and good oil – ripe, simple perfection. (There have been mutterings about prices, notably for carabineros – vast, sweet, meaty red shrimp – at around £20 each, but you'll pay about the same in Spain for these rare treats, their heads just crying out to be sucked.)
That lamb's brain? Well, it's delicious, in the way that only something crumbed and fried, topped with a pinenut-studded tapenade and marooned in a punchy, vivid tomato sauce can be. I've eaten lambs' brains raw, sliced wafer-thin in a little oil, lemon juice and salt, so the unique, meaty-pannacotta quality shone through. This thorough going-over, however, reduces the wibbly organ to little more than texture.
Chef Nieves Barragán is sitting beside us, watching the ballet of food preparation with gimlet intensity. Yep, we're still here, still queue-tormenting, having just ordered pig's ears. I imagine the ears to be sorta-scratchings, fatty and crunchy and moreish, as they are at Duck & Waffle. Instead, they're just blasted with heat and plonked on the plate, the only sanitising flourish a scatter of fried sage leaves. Their cartilaginous hairiness is challenging and we give up. Our neighbours – these bar stools are nothing if not sociable – take them home for their dog and we score the remains of their manchego and membrillo cheeseboard in exchange. Result.
Perhaps that German word could be genussvolleswarteschlangewutimnackenkribbeln (delicious-queue-anger-in-your-neck-prickle). Whatever: if you see me in brilliant Barrafina, give me a wide berth. Because I'm not budging.
• Barrafina 10 Adelaide Street, London WC2, 020-7440 1456. Open Mon-Sat, noon-3pm, 5-11pm. About £50 a head (unless you're greedy and stay hours, like I did), plus drinks and service.
Food 9/10
Atmosphere 8/10
Value for money 7/10
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