Beginner’s Luck
I did my first New York tapeo, or tapas
crawl, on a chilly night in November.
Five of us started with cocktails—at a
place about as far from a tapas joint as
you can get: Mario Batali’s fancy Del
Posto restaurant. We listened to the tinkling of the grand piano and sipped Bellinis while plotting our evening’s course.
Afterward, we zipped up our coats and
walked up Tenth Avenue to Tia Pol.
This restaurant came onto the scene
in 2004, introducing fun new creations
such as sea urchin with roasted eggplant
alongside classic tapas such as patatas
bravas, which are fried chunks of potatoes with romesco sauce.
With a tiny, eight-seat bar up front,
tall two-top tables lining the right side
of a narrow dining room and one table
tucked in a nook in back, you’d be lucky
to get a seat here—and that evening,
we were not. The wait was an hour and
a half. We left, thinking we were in for a
difficult night.
then pressed on a panino grill. The flavors were briny and spicy, the textures
creamy and crunchy—all at once. It was
truly a new and exciting taste, and we
were thrilled.
We found the food to be just as innovative at our final destination of the evening, Txikito (shee-KEE-toe; the name
is Basque). There’s a small bar up front
and the walls and ceiling are covered
in grayed, weathered wood reclaimed
from a barn. One foot above each table a
tiny tray juts out from the wall—perfect
for resting your bottle of wine out of
the way of your food. This being one of
those slightly bacchanalian evenings, we
ordered two bottles, both of them the
Basque txakolina (sha-ko-LEEN-ah), a
bright, citrusy, nearly effervescent wine
that’s almost as much fun to say as it is
to drink.
Octopus carpaccio with lemon oil,
mayonnaise and pimente d’espilette was
refreshing and spicy; blood sausage egg
rolls were very, very rich; crostini with
Visiting these three restaurants in
one night—all are within two blocks
of one another—is about as close to
a modern tapas run as you’re going
to get in New York. And modern is the
key word: These restaurants benefit
from kitchen talent that’s not afraid
to experiment.
Tapeo Classico
You have other options for a tapas run
in New York. El Faro in the Meatpacking District, which opened in 1927, and
El Quijote, which opened in 1930, have
been serving the same Spanish dishes,
such as gambas al ajillo (shrimp in
garlic) and tortilla espanola (a Spanish
omelet, usually with potatoes) for more
than 70 years.
“They are old school,” says Andy
Nusser, who owns Casa Mono and Bar
Jamón on Irving Place. “They’re the
foundation of what Spanish food was.”
Comparing these classic and mod-
ern styles locally is a lot like exploring
The walls and ceiling at Txikito were fashioned from reclaimed wood from a barn.
But when we walked into El Quinto
Pino, around the corner closer to Ninth
Avenue, we found five adjacent seats
open at the tiny horseshoe-shaped
marble bar, as if they had been waiting
especially for us. We ordered two kinds
of anchovies—Basque (tomatoey, a little
sweet and salty) and white (briny and
vinegary)—and placed them gingerly
on slices of baguette. We shared potato
hash with chorizo and quail egg (insane)
and braised pork belly cured for days and
then deep fried (who are you kidding?).
And then we tasted the uni sandwich.
Sea urchin, Korean mustard oil and
butter are spread onto a thin ficelle and
a gratin of artichoke, Roncal cheese and
ham were creamy, meaty and cheesy; and
my favorite dish, brussels sprouts and
cauliflower with an anchovy sauce, had
the best of all worlds: salty, sweet, bitter
and creamy.
what’s going on in the Spanish culinary
scene, too. There, rustic basement bars
with bullfighting posters on the walls
and paella on the menu share the spotlight with avant-garde cooks challenging
conventional techniques. But in both
Spain and New York, says Raij, tapas restaurants are where the two can always
meet and be happy.
“There’s a spirit of the creative
aspect,” she says. “Tapas have always
been thinking-out-of-the-box places.
You could restyle [classics] as long as
the type of hospitality you were offering
was really convivial, and the bar being an
important part.”
