While I was making my plans to go to Copa Jerez I thought – hey! – why not do another quick overnight getaway to El Puerto de Santa María too? I was last there briefly a year ago for an afternoon sherry event, and before that I had spent a November morning visiting bodegas with Julie & Steve – that was in 2014 (!). But I hadn’t spent more than a few hours in town since an overnight stay in November 2013, and there were a couple of new restaurants I wanted to check out, so I booked a room at quirky and charming Casa de Huéspedes, where I had stayed before. Then it turned out that Tomoko wanted to join us, so another room was booked, and we arrived early evening, after having spent the day at Copa Jerez.
Casa de Huespedes was just as charming as I remembered, and so were our lovely hosts Carlos and Myriam. After settling in and having a bit of rest we went out for dinner at La Bodeguilla del Bar Jamón, a place I’d been dreaming about since my first visit there in 2013 (and which had also been the venue for the sherry event last summer). We sat outside on the terrace with a welcome breeze and ate very well. Afterwards we popped over to Bespoke to pick up my It’s Sherry Time pin and also have a couple of sherry cocktails. By the time we got back to Casa Huéspedes, Tomoko and I had clocked over 16,000 fitbit steps and were more than ready for our (comfy) beds.
La Bodeguilla del Bar Jamón:
• signature jamón tosta with garlicky olive oil and tomato
• salt cod and pepper scrambled eggs
• breaded prawns, peppers and onions with jamón
• presa Ibérica with jamón and chips
Next morning, after a light brekkie at Casa Huéspedes, we made plans for the day. Unfortunately it was already too late to make it for the bodega tour at Gutiérrez Colosía, and the owner of Bodegas Grant was out of town, so we decided to just go out and see what happened. We had booked El Faro for lunch, but there were still a couple of hours until then, so we walked over to the market, and then to Bodegas Obregon, finally stopping at Ángel León’s new Taberna del Chef del Mar, housed in the site of his original michelin star Poniente (which is now located in larger digs across town). We’d all heard mixed things about the Taberna but decided to find out for ourselves, with a couple of pre-lunch dishes. Verdict? Very tasty, excellent execution, great service… but?… just not worth the prices. We’ve had better ceviche in Sevilla for half the price (that small bowl was 15€) and 2€ per croqueta? Seriously? It’s a shame because the place is very pleasant and the rest of the menu looked good too.
La Taberna del Chef del Mar:
• cuttlefish croquetas
• ceviche
Tomoko getting a shot of THAT tempura urta.
Then we got a taxi over to El Faro for our “main course”. We were happy to discover that there is now a tapas menu other than at the bar – one of the formerly unused patios has been transformed into a bright and cheerful tapas area. All I knew was that I wanted to try THAT tempura fish we’d seen prepared during the Tempura vs Fritura competition the day before at Copa Jerez. We started off ordering a few dishes to share, but it turned out that the tempura fish version offered on the tapas menu didn’t include the wonderful “whole fish” presentation you see here. But then it turned out that we could also order restaurant menu items in the tapas area! So we quickly revised our order to include only the Almadraba tuna tartare and then THAT fish. In this case it was urta and it was perfect. Weirdly served with salmorejo as a “dipping sauce”… we chose to drink the soup and just have the tempura urta on its own. The tuna tartare looked like rubies and was served with wasabi, ginger and horseradish. Heaven.
El Faro:
• tuna almadraba tartare
• tempura urta with salmorejo
Peter, Fernando and Tomoko, in the El Faro bodega
By then we were stuffed! But we didn’t want to leave without thanking chef Fernando Córdoba, and when he found out that Tomoko and I are sherry educators he took us to see his bodega. A very generous and caring person – we felt honoured that he spent so much time with us.
There was a bit of a Death March back to the centre of town after that, in the blazing late afternoon HEAT, but we managed to take a look inside Toro Tapas, the new bar inside Bodegas Osborne, before collecting our bags at the Casa Huéspedes and heading to the train station.
Foolishly or otherwise, we decided to stop for a last quick COLD ONE at Bar Apolo on the way, thinking we had plenty of time. And we may have had it not been 40º and we hadn’t had luggage… we arrived at the station with about two minutes to spare and then found out the escalators were out of service (!!). One final sprint up the stairs got us onto the train and literally 30 seconds later it pulled out of the station. Phew!
One of the hazards of being a high profile Queen of Tapas and sherry educator is that just when you thought you might get an actual day off you get invited to go out and eat and drink fine food and wines. 😉 This week’s guilty parties were winemakers Finca Allende, and hosts and food pairing providers for their cata (tasting), Abades Triana restaurant.
The cata itself was conducted by Miguel Ángel de Gregorio of Finca Allende. They are a fairly small bodega from Briones in the Rioja Alta, and it was interesting to learn something more about this wine region. Miguel Ángel, who is clearly passionate about his wines, first arrived in Briones in 1986, and considered the climate, and especially the land, as ideal for the kind of terroire driven wines that he wanted to make.
We tried six different wines, two white and four red, each made with grapes from specific parcels of land, and which paired very nicely with a menu that progressed from a soup starter (salmorejo), through a tartar of urta (fish), a pluma Iberica, and beef to a chocolate mousse dessert. Exquisite.
I kind of hit the ground running after getting back from my London Getaway. I had already planned to get together with 
It was a fabulous evening. Fran is a native New Yorker who now lives in Tokyo with her husband Kaz. Aside from being film producers and art lovers, they are both also food & wine lovers, and as usual Sevilla worked its magic on them. By the end of the evening we had all become fast friends and F & K were already talking about planning a return visit to Andalucía. Come back soon! xx
I have “known” travel and food writer 
Greek olives at Old Spitalfields Market
Smithfield Meat Market
The Eagle
cheers!
chef Shaun Searley and his famous confit potatoes
Ye Olde Mitre
Peter, Steven, Julie and John at Ye Olde Mitre
obstructed view from the Sky Garden
Leadenhall Market
the Spitalfields goat
Taberna do Mercado:
So this was it! The day I’d been looking forward to and dreading in equal measure. Also it was the main reason for being in London for this particular London Getaway, to be one of the judges at the first World Sherry Awards. I say “dreading” because I had never judged anything at this level before, and wasn’t sure what would be expected. Happily my friend Owen 
Owen finds a secret passage behind fake bookshelf door at the Caledonian Club
cool Tudor style buildings just off Regent Street
the Egyptian escalator in Harrod’s
chillin’ and rechargin’ at Harvey Nicks
fall-off-the-bone smoked beef short rib at Zelman Meats
triple-fried chips with Holy Fuck mayo (their name, not mine)
pubbing with John and Peter
This was the only day I had actually planned both lunch and dinner meet-ups with friends. And I knew I’d be fine lunching light with Thane 
What an amazing day! It started off very promising with partly blue skies and billowy white clouds (instead of the forecasted thunderstorms) so we were cautiously optimistic as we headed over to London Fields station to meet up with Nicola 
We started off at Netil market for a light breakfast snack at the wonderful Yeast bakery, but before long it was Beer & O’clock and, after a stroll through busy Broadway Mkt we made our way over to Schoolyard and then back to Netil. Honestly, it was like being out with me, but in Hackney. Nicola knew all the best places to stop at each market, and exactly what to order. It was a delightful selection of delicious tastes: pillowy pork baos, crunchy fried chicken, spicy beef rendang and perfect pork dumplings.
Nicola with dumplings
scotch eggs at Broadway Mkt – took some home for breakfasts
spicy beef rendang at Schoolyard Mkt – a first for me
gorgeous tomatoes at Broadway Mkt
front row seats at Lardo – chef was great fun to watch and talk with
oops, second bottle of wine
spotted in Hackney – a pretty Nissan Figaro (with eyelashes)
oops… cocktails at Every Cloud
fantastic Burmese dinner at Lahpet
So remember last year when I won the 
Well, as soon as I walked in the door I was bear-hugged by Antonio Cruz (left) who was clearly still on cloud 9 after having won the Best Front of House award for 
