Small plates and big bills at the Opera Tavern

The slice is right: carved ham and other meats feature heavily on the Opera Tavern menu
10 April 2012

Back in the Eighties, Antony Worrall Thompson opened a restaurant in Beauchamp Place called Ménage à Trois that served only starters and puddings. He had noticed that this was what women, certain women anyway, liked to eat. The place became for a time a roaring success, attracting the patronage of Princess Diana.

But the appeal of having a culinary hit while not consuming too many calories survives, reformulated now a little less embarrassingly as tapas and small-plate dining. Proper tapas, eaten and ordered at the bar, has its own integrity even when not actually Spanish, successfully recreated, for example, at places such as Morito, the offshoot of Moro. But small-plate places, with waiter service and an eclectic menu, are a slightly more questionable proposition, albeit currently fashionable.

The Opera Tavern, a former boozer opposite the Theatre Royal, has recently been opened as a tapas-plus joint by the people who run Salt Yard in Goodge Street and Dehesa in Ganton Street.

It's on two levels, a more informal bar downstairs, and a proper, bookable dining room upstairs, which is where we were ushered on arrival. It's a nice enough space, with some exposed brick and a wall of wine bottles, well lit by a big piano nobile window, furnished with angular, modern chairs and tables.

The menu leaves it up to you to structure the meal, offering on the one side snacks, hams, charcuterie, cheese plus stuff "from the charcoal grill", and on the other "tapas", divided into fish, meat and vegetables, all just as much Italian in inspiration, or, put it another way, modern British, as Spanish.

Chargrilled bread with olive oil (£2.55) was excellent, smoky, chewy rustic stuff - there wasn't enough of it and we ordered a second round, making it an expensive filler. Crispy Iberico pigs' ears (£3) sounded irresistible but turned out instead to be inedible and rock-hard.

We'd been suckered by the irresistible word "iberico", not thinking enough how that distinction could possibly be made manifest in a pork scratching.

Pinchos Morunos are meaty skewers, aka mini kebabs (£2.95 each). In Spain, they're usually pork but here they're more fancy. Saltmarsh Lamb Leg and Kidney with Smoked Paprika had a good tangy seasoning and a delicate offally component but it was served not just rare but completely raw, barely even warmed. The waiter insisted that this was intentional, offering to have it cooked more if we wanted, never a happy outcome. Even more alarmingly, moorish marinated Iberico pork was also more than rare. To find this with onglet with porcini and winter truffle was fine, the slippery cep and strong truffley aroma making it a rewarding chew.

From the main tapas menu, roasted salt cod with romesco crust, arroz negro and piquillio emulsion (£7.50) was a firm little chunk of the reconstituted fish, the salt still dominating the crunchy salsa, sitting on some glutinous squid-ink risotto with faintly flavoured peppery juice around. It seemed over-elaborate for tapas, yet too small to constitute a course. Crispy squid and sea purslane with aioli (£6.50) was excellently fresh and nicely battered and fried, which made the modest serving a bit frustrating.

The little leaves of sea purslane had little to add other than impressive verbiage to the listing.

Braised short rib of beef with polenta, cavolo nero and sage (£7.25) was softened, shredded meat formed into a cube, decorated with just a couple of fried sage leaves: again, more than a sample, less than a meal. The beef itself was no more than all right, and visually reminiscent of Whiskas. Courgette flowers stuffed with goats' cheese and drizzled with honey (£7.55 for two) were good - crisply fried, full of a highly favoured cheese, perhaps the excellent Monte Enebro they use at Salt Yard. There's a heavy sour/sweet/salty thing going on in many of these dishes.

Three manchegos with quince (£7.40) was a great plateful, the cheeses progressively three, six and nine months old, served on a rough circle of slate, with flaky crispbread. But a pudding of slow-cooked quince with mascarpone and biscotti (£5.35) was so heavily spiced with cinnamon and star anise as to resemble a warm pickle.

There's a pretty interesting wine list, with good choices by the glass (Molino Loco Monastrell from Spain, £4.25, Bellamarsilla from Italy, £6.40).

The likelihood is that you will end up with a bill much higher than you had anticipated. Without being greedy, we clocked up £105.02 for lunch for two, for a pleasant enough but not memorable meal.

Covent Garden being a tourist trap, the Opera Tavern is a more useful addition to the choices here than it would be in Soho and elsewhere - and all that sharing would make it date-friendly as well as a practical rendezvous for light-lunching ladies. Our stylish waitress, Marie, was the best thing. From Nantes, as it happened. Nobody Spanish at the Opera Tavern at all, she reported.

The Opera Tavern
23 Catherine Street, WC2B 5JS

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