Tapas, txakoli and just a touch of experimentation – Larry and Larman find themselves transported to Bilbao via a vaulted cellar in the piazza…
We hear Covent Garden piazza before we see it. A string quartet is concluding a rendition of Vivaldi’s ‘Summer’ in the courtyard, lending us a soundtrack as we arrive. I pause among the crowd, glance over the balcony at the players, and spot our destination below.
Pintxito occupies an arched-ceiling cellar beneath the piazza, with tables spilling outside, for those who like their tapas with a side of buskers. We, however, are tucked inside at the back, away from the action – and perhaps the better for it. “Well,” Larman remarks, as we sit, “this is somewhat different from our usual fare, old chap.”
He has a point. Once you’re in, you can’t escape the sense you’ve stumbled into a Sevillian tapas bar (albeit the wrong end of Spain) – bar-benches, numbered settings – all that’s missing is a barman chalking orders on the wall. But then this attention to authenticity is to be expected from the team behind the highly-regarded Camino tapas restaurants in the capital. Here, though, we’re in the Basque country, where tapas are, shall we say, done differently.
But first, a tipple, naturally. The drinks list is brief. Cocktail aficionados may despair, but this is really about the wine. The sole aperitif, a G&T with Spain’s award-winning gin, proves hard to argue with. Clean, sharp, and exactly what we might have chosen anyway.
We begin with gildas, or skewers: quail egg for him, anchovy for me. “I don’t do anchovies, old boy,” he declares. All the better. Each simple, delicious, with a bulbous briny olive to set it off, pairing with the gin as if by design.
We clink glasses. “This is nice,” says Larman, surveying the room. “Larry and Larman, in our cellar…” I offer. “…of shame,” he finishes, and we give a conspiratorial chuckle. Two more bites appear: avocado escabeche on coca bread for him, and a ‘gran reserva’ anchovy for me. Both demand napkins. The anchovy – a two-year cured Santoña laid on coca bread with smoked butter – has a depth that keeps unfolding long after the mouthful has gone.
A foursome arrive at the next table, “I’m excited about this,” one of them offers, “I was in Bilbao last week…”. Larman and I exchange looks. We were there already.
The joy of pintxos is the freedom to graze indefinitely. Over a crisp glass of Txakoli, we move through Idiazabal cheese, tortilla, roasted aubergine with yoghurt and almonds, and an albacore tartlet. Variety without excess – and, unlike many tapas menus, no sense you’re circling the same three dishes.
To bring order, we impose a rhythm of sorts: nibbles, starters, mains. The meat follows: txistorra hot chorizo, spiced lamb with chimichurri, Iberico ham, and Txerri-Belaria pig’s ear (yes, you read that right). The ham is sliced thinner than graphene. The lamb skewer tastes like a roast in miniature. The mini chorizos burst with each bite. We switch to red – another Txakoli, and a supremely elegant reserva Rioja Alavesa. Both prove ideal, and our lunch begins to resemble a tasting menu with wine flight. Our cups, quite literally, runneth over.
One dish deserves particular mention: tomate con pan. Well, I was thinking of Spain, tomatoes…Ordered out of curiosity, it makes bruschetta feel like a crude sketch. If you want to know what tomato on toast can achieve, this is the place.
And yes, suffice to say, they did not make a pig’s ear of the pig’s ear. Not chewy, mercifully, but crispy, with brava sauce. One bite, alas, and it’s gone. A shame, but perhaps just as well.
By now we are reaching capacity, ‘peak pintxo’, if you will. Fortunately, desserts are not legion: Basque cheesecake and txocolate (sic) truffles. With short coffees (of which there appear to be more varieties than anyone needs) and a Basque liqueur for me, while Larman pivots to the cider. It tastes, he reports, like fermented apple juice sucked through an oak straw. “Cider as it should be,” he declares.
“It’s nice to come somewhere,” Larman muses, as we ease gently into the afternoon, “that’s low-key and laid-back.” Quite so. Pintxito does the rarest of things: it summons the spirit of its inspiration convincingly enough that, for a moment, you could almost be there. I glance at the map of the Basque country on the wall and, for a moment – before the quartet outside pipes up again – I am.
Pintxito,Unit 34 The Market, Covent Garden, London WC2E 8RE. For more information, and for bookings, please visit www.pintxitolondon.com.
