New Spring menu coming soon.

Crazy Saturday night after reviews from Food and Wine and Paolo. Always happy to see new faces try the tapas thing!

Off to the Euro-toques AGM on Monday.

After a busy weekend its time to take stock again and count how many chickens are missing.

Going to be a big weekend with it all picking up since Thursday and nearly full now for Monday also. Where would we be without love?

New dessert menu on Monday, white chocolate mousse, tangerine sorbet, and chocolate covered almond cake

It's certainly picked up this week with plenty in on Monday and Tuesday. Thanks to all.

busy day today with outside catering to keep us going. Full house tonight.

full house tonight in spite of the awful weather. Hopefully they all make it.

Good night with slow start didn't fill up until eight then it was a case of not enough space - tapas and wine for all - cheers!

The early bird (5 tapas for price of 4) between 4.30 and 6.30 (Mon-Thurs) went well yesterday with a flock of people in.

Rain, rain, go away, let's go to Spain for the day (or cava will have to do).

We'll be trying some wines with our staff from wine menu with Colm from Honest2Goodnees from 4-6. Why not come down at 5.30 to sample some?

And Paolo Tullio was in last Thursday, I forgot to say. Had four tapas and some sherry. Left happy. Well done Alex and Pawel.

Look out for the Food and Wine Magazine review - they were in last Sunday! Hopefully all was to there impeccable standard.

It certainly did pick up a bit last night, not too much, but enough to let us know we are leaving winter behind.

Lovely start to the week with the Irish plaice wrapped in Serrano ham and served with lemon mayo selling well

Hurrrah, its nearly Spring!

Well, January will not be missed. A slow start to the year and some difficult customers to take care of!

G is for Gazpacho

Gazpacho is a cold Spanish tomato-based raw vegetable soup, originating in the southern region of Andalusia. Gazpacho is widely consumed throughout Spain, neighboring Portugal (where it is known as gaspacho) and parts of Latin America. Gazpacho is mostly consumed during the summer months, due to its cold temperature and acidic bite.

Gazpacho has ancient roots. There are a number of theories of its origin, including as an Arab soup of bread, olive oil, water and garlic that arrived in Spain with the Moors, or via the Romans with the addition of vinegar.

Once in Spain it became a part of Andalusian cuisine, particularly Seville, using stale bread, garlic, olive oil, salt, and vinegar, similar to ajoblanco.

Gazpacho remained popular with field hands as a way to cool off during the summer and to use available ingredients such as fresh vegetables and stale bread.

There are many modern variations of gazpacho, often in different colors and omitting the tomatoes and bread in favor of avocados, cucumbers, parsley, watermelon, grapes, meat stock, seafood, and other ingredients, such as strawberries or beetroot.

Gazpacho has become an almost generic term for chilled vegetable soup.

In Andalusia, most gazpacho recipes typically include stale bread, tomato, cucumber, bell pepper, garlic, olive oil, wine vinegar, and salt. Some may also include onion.

The following is Cava's method of preparing gazpacho:

1. Wash 10 vine tomatoes, 1 cucumber, 1 red and 1 green pepper.
2. Peel 2 cloves of garlic and 1 onion, and take half the skin of the cucumber.
3. Put all the vegetables into food processor.
4. Soak 200g of stale bread with 100ml olive oil and 50ml of sherry vinegar.
5. Add chilled water until you get a smooth soup-like consistency.
6. Add salt and pepper to taste.
7. Chill soup overnight and serve cold the next day.

Traditionally, gazpacho is made by pounding the vegetables using a mortar and pestle and although this method is still sometimes favoured as it helps keep the gazpacho cool and avoids the completely smooth consistency and foam, most professionals now use food processors.

Gazpacho, along with tortilla and Serrano ham are three of the most traditional tapas available in Cava.