La Plaza (Tapas)
Above: Portobello tapas bar, La Plaza
One mild annoyance in an otherwise agreeable job is the typical restaurant press release. This tells, in opaque hyperbole, of the opening of a ‘groundbreaking’ new restaurant, with an ‘acclaimed’ chef cooking ‘cutting-edge, post-modernist’ dishes, served in a room which is ‘spacious yet intimate’, where ‘classic meets contemporary’ in a ‘witty and ironic’ atmosphere. That the release has been written by somebody to whom wit and irony are complete strangers is, well, rather ironic.
How lovely, then, to find a new restaurant on my doorstep which does exactly what it says on the tin. La Plaza, named after the square between Tavistock Road and Portobello Road, is an authentic and delightful tapas bar, owned and run by Galicians and serving exactly the sort of food and drink you might expect, in a setting which is, thankfully, neither witty nor ironic.
You really could be in Spain. Behind the handsome wooden bar, a cooked octopus is curled up between a couple of tortillas, beneath an empanada (a sort of shallow Galician pie) and a roast leg of pork of heroic proportions.
The only ‘cutting-edge’ aspect to the menu is the fearsome knife used to slice some very good Serrano ham: otherwise, the menu runs along familiar lines. None of it is very expensive, and most of it is very good. Having eaten there several times, I can thoroughly recommend the octopus (dusted with smoked paprika, and better without the rather mushy potatoes), the tortilla, all the cold meats, the pimentos de Padron, the salt cod croquetas and, especially, the menu of the day: I had some sublime albondigas and a supremely fresh whole bream for £8.95.
This stretch of Portobello is not, of course, short of Iberian influence: Garcia’s cafe and shop, de la Fuente’s crowded emporium, the venerable (but rather gloomy) Galicia, and the Portuguese cafes and delis on Golborne Road. La Plaza fits very neatly into the neighbourhood
The low point of the wine list is a very feeble Harvey’s fino sherry; the high point is Protos, a particularly toothsome Ribera del Duero at a bargain £17.50. Service is charming, professional and very Spanish, and there is an amiable buzz of relaxed enjoyment which, dare I say, makes a very pleasant change from the froideur of the achingly trendy style-palaces for which nonsensical press releases are written.
By the time you read this, La Plaza’s teething troubles should have been resolved: there should be tables outside, and they should be taking credit cards. And I’ll be the happy-looking chap at the bar with the plate of ham and the bottle of red wine, tearing press releases into small pieces.
Tapas for two, with wine, around £45
La Plaza, 74 Tavistock Road, Notting Hill, W11 1AN
020 7229 5995
Bill Knott