Food at 52’s Spanish Lessons

Even though Londoners are quite cosmopolitan in terms of what they like to eat when they go out, they are quite conservative in terms of what they’ll make for themselves.

People will happily go out for Thai, Indian, Ethiopian or any other kind of foreign cuisine, but ask your average Londoner to put together a dish from overseas and they’ll probably ask if reheating leftover dhal counts as cooking.

Maybe it’s the pace of urban life that puts so many of us off, but given how simple a lot of foreign food is we should be trying to venture beyond pasta and cheese on toast.

Every year 16 million Britons go to Spain, but of those only three per cent have bothered to replicate the tapas experience at home.

I found out how easy it was, even for a kitchen disaster such as myself, to put together tapas dishes. Then again, I was under the guidance of chef John Benbow who runs the restaurant within a house, Food at 52, in the heart of Clerkenwell. Not only did he provide a step-by-step guide to prepare the tapas but there was also additional Campo Viejo wine to go with each dish as part of their Viva el Vino experience: matching up food with wine rather than the other way round.

Nine of us were separated into two groups and we were all able to contribute to putting the tapas dishes together. We started off with a simple tortilla and although I got off to a ropey start with poorly sliced onions, I finished with a triumphant flipping of the mixture, giving me the confidence I needed to go onto the next couple of dishes.

Soon enough we were making our own mayonnaise, providing an excellent compliment to the lamb chops. The rosé wine with its strawberry and flower flavours complimented the grilled prawns with romesco and by the time it got to stuffing dates with chorizo, I was relishing the chance to do more and more of the preparation. No longer was I hoping to muddle through and let others do the bulk of the work, I wanted to clear the tracks from the prawns and to grind down the chillies, cumin, paprika and vinegar into a paste to produce the patatas bravas.

We finished off preparing the calamari and tuna tartar, and both tasted that bit better for having been produced by my own zealous hands. I am still some way off mastering the art of preparing tapas but the point is that tapas is simple food with little technical difficulty involved. Food at 52’s achievement in their mannered laying out of the process has resulted in a rise in my confidence, which means those cans of soup might be left a little while longer in the cupboard.

Food at 52
52 Great Percy Street
Clerkenwell
WC1X 9QR

Tel: 07814 027 067