Restaurants / Reviews
Paco Tapas – restaurant/bar review
There is a painting hanging on one wall of Paco Tapas that hung in the original Casamia when it opened as a simple Italian trattoria in Westbury-on-Trym 1999.
Back then, Spain-born Paco Sanchez Iglesias was advised not to open a Spanish restaurant in his adopted hometown. How times have changed.
This is a tapas bar you could happily spend all evening in, especially if tucking into the selection of sherries starting at £3.50 a glass.
is needed now More than ever
On a recent Friday evening, a roaring fire in the restaurant’s clay Basque-style barbecue oven provided much needed respite from wintry squalls outside.
Inside, a couple of dozen diners can sit at high tables, with another 10 more accommodated on stools overlooking the chefs at work. Choose the seat in the far corner for the best view of the well-drilled brigade – so long as you can stand the heat from the coals.
Even the bread spends time on the grill, scored like Roman numerals before being liberally slathered in olive oil.
Soon after opening at 5pm, there was a glimpse of Peter Sanchez-Iglesias but after a few words of encouragement he was gone, reappearing about half an hour later to nod his head along to a flamenco cover of Hotel California by The Eagles on the stereo and offering more wise words to his cohorts, plating some of the food and adding the finishing touches of seasoning.
He needs to be able to trust in his team. It is his reputation at stake, and small blemishes here will no doubt be judged more harshly due to the Michelin-starred Casamia being run by the same family and located only two doors down, separated by Pi Shop – just the second out of three restaurants opened at The General over the course of this year.
Not that there were any blemishes on offer on Friday evening. If Casamia next door but one prepares the best peas you’ve ever tasted, then you’ll go some way – probably all the way to Spain – to find better chorizo, tortilla, croquettes and patatas bravas as these.
Prices start at £2 for the para picar selection including marinated olives and Manchego cheese with honey, with other sections of the menu for cold meats, meat, fish and stew. There will also be daily specials, such as prime cuts of Galician steak sold by weight.
Filleted salt-cured tuna (mojama) was sliced so thinly that it was almost translucent, sprinkled with chopped almonds.
The painting is not the only thing hanging here, with a various meat hanging by hooks and a pair of pig’s trotters pointing from the kitchen to Bathurst Basin – the last hurrah of a creature grazed on acorns and whose subsequent jamon iberico is a thing of beauty.
Marinated fried fish (cazon en adobo) was sliced into cubes the size of large dice, while to finish a dessert of a chocolate and olive oil pot was simply exquisite.
Seventeen years is a long time to wait to open a restaurant. A lot has happened in the meantime but for Paco Sanchez Iglesias, his dream has finally come true.
Paco Tapas, 3a The General, Lower Guinea Street, BS1 6SY
0117 925 7021
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