I didn’t want to rave about Copita for many reasons. First, I loved its intimate ambiance of high wooden counters and stools. I could stand, sit, perch, perv, do whatever I like. Second, I loved its “No Reservation” policy and the carefree tag line on its website reading “Dinner 5.30pm to Close”. Third, I liked it very much today that I was the only diner there. No queue. Dishes arrived at a highly appetising pace. So tranquil and perfect…

I would hate for punters to flock Copita. I wanted to keep this place to myself!!

Back to reality of London restaurants, Copita offered something truly endearing and adequately inventive. While such repetitive terms as “small”, “sharing”, “tapas”, etc. could easily kill my culinary excitement (for the fact that the concept has been done, redone and undone to buggery in the last couple of years), this little Spanish tapas gem stood out. Say, a decent sized menu with prices hovering between £2.50 – £7.95 with the exception of Jamon de Bellota (40g) at £13.50. Dishes were, of course, as lilliputian as the prices. I could demolish one in a matter of less than 3 spoonfuls.

The twists?

The twists were the raw beauty and precision that accompanied these small plates. Ajo Blanco with Beetroot (£3.95) was this coy almond soup. I was blown away by the subtlety of flavours. Served chilled, the soup was milky and sweet. Little pearls of grapes rested alongside cubes of beetroot and chopped almond rendering not just multi-dimensional sweetness but a maelstrom of pleasurable texture, while the courageous topping of dill brought it all to life. A good note of vinegar-y acidity in the background. Razor Clams & Chevril Roots (£3.50) was no less beautifully created. Lightly cured and sliced razor clam was pleasantly springy and served on a bed of olive oil-infused potato puree and garnished with nano-cubes of potatoes and smashed chevril roots. Creamy and delicious (though I think some more acidity would have made it even more stellar). I was also in love with my Baked Duck Eggs, Girolles & Summer Truffle (£5.95). The just congealed and faintly salted egg yolk added sumptuousness to girolles, peppers and sorrel. There was some truffle dust but hardly any aroma. (They could have cheated with truffle oil).

My next dish was John Dory & Shrimps (£5.95), which featured this pretty and fresh JD fillet and bulb-y, shelled shrimps braised in parsley, garlic, chilli and white wine sauce. It was packed with sea flavours but verged on having too much salt content for my liking. Less distinct in deliciousness was Lamb Sweetbreads & White Asparagus (£4.50). While the sweetbreads were wonderfully crispy outside and sponge-y within, I found the flavour combination to be ordinary. White asparagus puree did not have much taste and the sourness – from the fresh scattering of sorrel leaves and the pickle-y sharpness of the capers – was intrusive. An okay dish, nonetheless. Squab Pigeon, Pear & Chocolate (£4.50) brought the grin back to my face. The meat expertly done at medium oozed robust goodies. The layering of fruity garnish, from pear paste, sugary roasted figs and (if I didn’t get it wrong) tangy dehydrated redcurrant (if not, Goji berries), proved that the inventiveness of the kitchen had paid off.

Desserts were less inspiring. Nata (£2.50) was curd-y and delectable, though the pastry was not as immensely flake-y as them ones at Fernandez & Wells. Olive Oil Ice Cream Choc Ice (£4.95) arrived very much a Magnun ice cream. The milk chocolate coating was lightly salted and made my mouth water insanely. The down side was that its richness overwhelmed the silky ice cream inside. I couldn’t taste olive oil as billed but detected some vanilla note. Not bad but again not how I envisioned the taste of an “Olive Oil Ice Cream”.

Stuffed!

I was.

My meal at Copita made me feel as if mopping up a superbly constructed tasting menu rather just tapas-ing. It brings to mind two disparate dining experiences that I love – say, hip tapas bars in Spain + Parisian bistronomy! This is food that is playful and inventive without negating comforting honesty. Risks are, certainly, paid off. (I hope the kitchen will be able to deliver precision and consistency during its busy hours).

Last question.. did the nano portion bother me?

Not one bit (this does not mean some others might not have issues). Flavours at Copita were bold enough to make themselves tasted and loved in a few bites. Be careful about the bill, though, as it could mount!

But, as it happens, I bloody love the place and can’t wait for a reprise.

Enough said,

My head rating says, “8.5 out of 10″.

My heart rating says, “9 out of 10″.

COPITA

26-27 D’ Arblay Street
Soho
London
W1F 8EP

Tel. 020 7287 7797

www.copita.co.uk

We visited on a Friday night: too busy, too loud, no seats free. So we revisited for lunch. Twice. And so this becomes a tale of two tapas bars: one that’s rammed on a Friday night like every other bar, pavement and cobblestone in west Soho, but one that’s a culinary destination the rest of the time.

One of the owners is Tim Luther, formerly of Albion Wine Shippers (his other place is Barrica tapas bar on Goodge Street). Although the list of Spanish wines doesn’t approach the ambition of, say, Cambio de Tercio in South Kensington – which has every Spanish wine you could want, and then some – Copita’s list is easier to navigate and better signposted.

The 40 table wines by the glass are marked with a ‘ traffic light’ system indicating light, medium, or full-bodied. Wines are then listed – a bit confusingly – by grape variety, or producer.

The focus is on lesser-known and better-value regions, such as Toro and Jumilla; but more obivous ones are there too, such as Rioja and Ribera del Duero.

With a name like ‘copita’ you might expect a huge sherry list, but the list isn’t massively long – though it does have good representatives of all the styles, from crisp, dry fino to raisiny, dessert-like Pedro Ximénez.

There’s also a properly Spanish selection of other drinks, such as pacharán, the sloe-flavoured liqueur.

The tapas portions are correctly Spanish-sized – that is, tiny nibbles.

The cutlery is also airline-meal sized, to scale.

We were so impressed with executive chef James Knight’s dishes, though, that we went back, and ate our way through almost the entire menu. And we can recommend everything.

Baked duck egg was served with aromatic girolles, smoky peppers and tiny shavings of summer truffles; simple, but perfect. Own-made ‘botiffara’ – the Catalan sausage – was unctuous and faggot-like, but lip-smacking and luscious, the fattiness of the pork cut with big caperberries.

Ajo blanco – the Andalucian white soup made from almonds with a hint of garlic (ajo) – was barely enough to fill an egg-cup, but the flavours transported us to Seville. Razor clam – singular – and chervil root was a stroke of genius, the contrast of textures a delight.

The cheese board had an impeccable selection of Manchego, the blue cheese Picos de Europa and a firm Andalucian goat/sheep blend called Payoyo, with a pert membrillo (quince paste) to cleanse the palate. The charcuterie, such as the salami-like morcilla de bellota, dark but waxy in texture, was also tip-top.

We raise our glasses to Copita.

Looking back, it may have been because Barrica was yet another conventional tapas bar in face of the stiff competition. The Brindisas for example, the mighty Dehesa group, the supremely hot Barrafina, and that’s just along the spine of Shaftesbury Avenue. 2009 feels like such a long time ago. In the future (2011) , populist plate sharing still prevails, but we have matured past reserving tables or eat sitting down, we’ve put Sherry on the tube map, and small plates are no longer limited to Iberian classics.

How does the rest of the world think of the way we Londoners like to eat out, I wonder. We seem to enjoy the shift toward establishments that merge drinking and nibbling, we don’t mind queuing up, or even notice that new restaurants are cramming the same covers onto shrinking floorspace. Just when you thought the proverbial towel of shared plates has been well and truly wrung of juicy ideas, comes a new tapas bar with enough upgrades to set itself apart from the competition.

But first, let’s talk about the setting: cellar-like, almost dingy (without spiderwebs), there are no tables, but rather rows of table tops supported on ceramic tiled pillars with bar high stools. The reconstructed dilapidation is part of a recurring theme that has taken over this part of town. We, the restaurant goer love it, but there might also be widespread admiration amongst restauranteurs for Russ Norman’s vision of the ultimate Soho diner. These days you can almost count on new restaurants to be reservation-free with food that doesn’t mind looking tussled and just-whipped-up.

Bread with picos biscuits; squab pigeon, pear and chocolate; ajo blanco with beetroot; baked fig with goat’s curd ice cream and cod throat, clams and parsley. The menu is rotated daily, everything reads simply, but with a twist: date, pigeon and beetroot on a tapas menu – that is news to me. Therein lies the refreshing game changer, and here’s a disclaimer before we dive in to the dishes : Whatever you see here, zoom out by 200%. The dishes are sized for baby owls, seriously tiny, smaller than a bamboo steamer of shui mai, though prices are also appreciatively scaled down to match, starting from £3 and up to £8.

I sampled a range, in order of escalating prices.

Pea, fresh cheese and truffle oil croquets, £2.95.

Yes, I know what you’re thinking – this is nothing more than mushy peas, deep-fried with balls of cheese (which taste deceptively like a mozzarella). It was, but it was also bloody fantastic – such simplicity, utter genius. I didn’t think croquetas would ever evolve past bechamel and ham, but here, we may be witnessing the birth of the next deep-fried ball of sensation. Let’s all put the scotch eggs to one side, and start giving these baddies a chance instead.

Duck egg yolk with piquillo and hazelnut, £4.95.

..and I believe with a good lashing of orange juice! The fruity exuberance was wildly fascinating – was this Iberian I wondered, or was it much more than that. Where Jose Pizzaro would think a simple pan-fried duck egg, with a yolk still raw and runny would suffice, Copita takes this several steps further by slow-cooking the yolk to the consistency of a baked custard, a well curdled goat’s cheese, clotted cream that has set in a cold box. Garnished with crushed hazelnut and a bunch of other fresh and choppable things, piquillo pepper butterflied like a bedsheet and showered with presumably olive oil (and a fruit juice such as orange) – it was edible sex. What a refreshing dish this was. Talk about flexing those culinary muscles. This will definitely intrigue neighbouring tapas bar owners and could well go down as one of the best dishes ever created this year (in London).

Cod throat, clams and parsley, £6.95.

The experience of eating arguably the best tapas dish I had this year, was quickly superseded by the best tapas I had this year. The texture of the cod throat meat was fabulous, an oily muscle, almost gelatinous, like eating fish belly or fish eyeballs , or fish head meat, that came with rich palate arresting flavours of oil, garlic and unctuous fish fat (if there is such a thing). Throat was like cheek, except tenderer with much amped flavours of cod – as if it had been soaking in its own liver oil and had spent the night laying with a garoupa in the fridge. I also believe the dish came with a good dollop of puréed garlic too, but I couldn’t tell. The resultant textures were so babyfood-like that each spoonful was knockout punch after knockout punch. Kapow.

Where the conventional tapas bar would have simply steamed clams and shrouded their nakedness with olive oil, Copita had taken it upon themselves to reinvent a classic bar snack into something worthy of record in the annals of culinary history. Cod throat rocks. I never want to go back to the fillet.

Iberico pork ribs, grelot and date sauce, £7.95.

And just when I thought they couldn’t top the cod throat, they surprise with this dastardly amazing homage to pit smoked ribs. Spanish style. You know the Spaniards had a hand in shaping pork smoking, look it up, American BBQ spoke latino at some point in its history. Meaty, gelatinious, muscles slowly pounded by smoke to a fall-off-the-bone consistency. And what in the hell is grelot? Who knows, whatever it was, it works, it has the x-factor. Date was less overbearing than honey, it resulted in a mellow, brown sugar roundness to the sweet bbq flavours, as opposed to a refined taste of monochromatic white sugar. These were a thinking man’s ribs. Bodeans nearby – be very afraid. Jamie and Adam… this is what good ribs taste like. Somebody pin a blue ribbon to this dish. The best pork ribs, I had had in London this year.

Custart tart, £2.50.

Or a slightly posher version of Nata from Nandos. Actually scratch that, no posher than Nandos, this is down and dirty stuff, like Nandos’ its kept on the bar as you enter. But it was definitely good Iberian custard, probably better than having to brave the danger of heading down to Casa Madeira in Vauxhall.

I’m really not a Sherry guy, too papery for me, but I get it, and recommendations to pairing sherry to the food is commendable. Not quite the flight of sherry you would get at Capote y Toros. So I settled with a tall Alhambra. £34.03 poorer, it wasn’t cheap, but I felt enlightened.

How many bread baskets do you know come with doggy style biscuits? Not many. And how many non-complimentary ones only cost a quid. Not many either. Fans of Jose (and probably Mr Pizzaro himself) really need to take a good long look at Copita. This tapas bar is next generation stuff, the flair in the cooking is superb – various sources suggest that the man with the plan is E.Chef James Knight. Well, whoever is behind the recipes, I tip my hat and applaud you – the cooking has verve and soul, the cooking is genial and poetic, the cooking is a reimagination of the small wonder of sampler portioned dishes. This is unadulterated pleasure for those who spend too much time paying for hospitality. Most of all however, the food is genuinely delicious.

And just like that, the world has changed once again.

The Deets.

Copita
Faster than you can say tapas. £33pp.
26-27 D’arblay Street W1F 8E
Tel: 0207 287 7797
Tube: Oxford Circus

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