The other evening at the Academia 5th Anniversary celebration one of the waiters who was serving canapés (in the photo collage) said to me “hey I remember you!”. I told him he’d have to remind me and he said he used to work at Casa Modesto. Talk about a blast from the past. It got me thinking about Modesto again because it used to be one of my favourite places when I lived in Barrio Santa Cruz and I realised I hadn’t been back in ages. Turned out my last update on Sevilla Tapas was back in 2013 (!!!) so when I was walking home after my sherry tour on Wednesday I stopped by to check out the menu, the bar, etc and was greeted by this guy, who also remembered me.

I told him about the waiter I’d met and showed him the photo I’d taken and that started off a whole conversation about the bar and the people there, past and present. So I decided I had to go back asap and do a proper update. Honestly I don’t remember why I had stopped going but I think it was because they had expanded across the street (that place is now gone) and it felt like they were becoming too touristy. Anyhow, the Big Test would be whether their famous Fritura Modesto was as good as ever. This is a mountain of crispy “calamares de campo” (onions, red and green peppers) topped with plump breaded prawns and was one of my favourite things to eat in the whole city. And well guess what? It’s STILL AMAZING. I also got to meet the owner Manuel who is now running the bar with his daughter Mariola and his niece Inma. In all those years of visiting Modesto I don’t remember meeting Manuel but he said he remembered seeing me there.

As you can imagine (and this was always the case) after eating that glorious fritura it’s hard to eat anything more. We did manage one other dish and a sea bass snack that Manuel brought out for us to try but that was IT. Obviously not nearly enough to replace 15 years of photos so we’ve made a date with our friend (and auxiliary stomach) Paul, who is back in town next week (yes AGAIN) to have lunch at Modesto and do our best to eat as many different dishes as possible.

I can’t wait! The really fun part about going back was that I showed them the old pics on Sevilla Tapas (now removed – they really are poor quality and mostly not relevant anymore) and omg they all got so excited. Manuel said “she’s got more photos of us than we do!”. Later they thanked me and said that I had really made their day and brought them a lot of joy. More joy next week!