Given the present climate for restaurants, I’m loathe to start the year by handing a new one a kicking. It’s shit out there. Spiralling bills, overhanging COVID debt, staffing issues, and a noticeable reduction of custom is but the tip of a giant fuck-off iceberg that’s not only melting at speed but ripping through the rudder of every ship it’s in contact with. And yes, that was a Titanic based analogy but that’s okay, I’ve seen the movie and she lives. Well, at least a while longer. She dead now.
Only the bravest or most naive would open a restaurant right now, even if I suspect it’s flipping an old restaurant and reopening it under a new cuisine. I didn’t like The Secret Sicilian – the same site where the newbie sits – and I won’t compare the two as this is a new restaurant, even if the decor change amounts to a Spanish flag, a flamenco dress, and some fun facts about Spain chalked up on the wall. Oh and the social media flipped to a new name. It’s a new restaurant. End of. It’s called…
El Buen Gusto. The Good Taste. Or at least that’s what they claim. I’ll try to get through this quickly and stick to the positives in order not to dismantle that notion. First good points; the things that should be crispy are crispy. The discs of aubergine, lightly battered and drizzled with honey and molasses, and the patatas bravas, a staple of any tapas restaurant, are fried to a hardened crust. The bravas sauce has a heavy hand on the smoked paprika, but overall it’s not bad. Another staple of Spain, pan con tomato, tastes as it should of bread, oil, tomato, and garlic, but they’ve tried to make it posher than it should be by using the flesh as opposed to the pulp. It needs to be wetter.
We get paella. Firstly, it’s great to see paella outside of Grand Central. It’s not great paella. Tasting mostly of cheap stock and uncooked wine, the meat is alright, the bomba rice has okay texture but no socarrat. It’s almost unforgivable for a paella, except I’m in a very forgiving mood. Anyway, they have paella and maybe the lack of socarrat, the uncooked wine taste, and the fact it’s a little too soupy is my fault given I asked them to tweak what went into it.
It’s all very affordable and the service is a bit haphazard and the other tables were ordering sangria whilst we were on soft drinks. If it sounds like I’m bring nice it’s because it’s tough out there. They need all the help they can get.
6/10
