José, Bermondsey St, London SE1
After managing to review somewhere that hadn’t even opened yet last time, normal service has been resumed here at MBFBY? towers. Here’s another review of somewhere everyone else wrote about 6 months ago.
It’s a sunny, autumnal Saturday morning in SE1. We decide to go for an amble round the foodie enclave of Maltby St (home of the excellent Kernel Brewery), then go for a spot of lunch on the ornamental dog enclave of Bermondsey St, like a pair of massive middle-class foodie stereotypes.
You’re spoiled for choice on Bermondsey St. You’ve got Zucca, Village East and The Garrison to name but a few. We were heading for tiny tapas bar José, set up earlier this year by ex-Brindisa chef José Pizarro. Now, it really is tiny. This is the third time we’ve attempted to get food there. Fortunately as we got there literally just after they’d opened at 11.55am, we managed to bag a couple of stools by the window overlooking the ornamental dog grooming salon across the road (i’m not joking). By 12.05pm the place was rammed and there was a queue of well-heeled couples snaking out of the door, miniature daschunds in tow.
It’s a lovely little spot, on a corner, on a very nice street. No tables, just stools, and an open kitchen. Friendly and welcoming staff were managing to successfully balance the jobs of getting food out and finding places for people to perch. A bottle of complementary sparkling water and a wee jar of spicy nibbles are brought over as soon as we’ve sat down. Ace.
We studied the menu. Lots of familiar sounding tapas. Nothing wrong with that. We made our selection and the waitress took our order. A few minutes later I looked over my shoulder and noticed a specials board behind the bar full of really exciting sounding dishes. D’oh! I suppose I could blame the waitress as it was obvious we’d not seen it from our entirely menu-based order, but the board was quite big and obvious. I snoozed, I losed.
First up was the delicious tomato bread. The huge amount of tomato topping was fresh & zingy, brought to life with a touch of garlic. The bread was similar to ciabatta but far lighter and very crispy. Yes, a simple dish but it was perfectly done.
Next up were smoked beef croquettes. As you’d expect from a master of modern Spanish tapas, these were AMAZING. Great crispy coating, creamy strong cheese and chunks of tender, smokey beef. Why do they give you 5 though? They always give you odd numbers of morsels in tapas joints, where there are quite often 2 peoplel sharing every dish. WHY?!??! Beats me.
The obligatory salad was also a highlight. Nothing fancy, just a well chosen, well prepared combination of quality ingredients in a light dressing. Pear, walnut, leaves and blue cheese. Delicious.
Now, even though this looks amazing it was a bit of a flop. Deep-fried hake with aioli. The aioli wasn’t really that garlicky, the batter wasn’t really that crispy, the fish didn’t really taste of anything and was a little undercooked. Never mind, eh?
Finally we had the pork meatballs. These were GREAT. I love a pork meatball, me. I think I may even prefer pork meatballs over beef. Served in a rich tomato sauce with some lightly fried bread this was a classic comfort-food tapas dish executed perfectly.
We had to dash on this occasion so we skipped dessert and coffee, but overall I thought José was excellent. I’d love to go back and work my way through the more exciting dishes on that specials board I’d missed but for 40 quid we had a top-notch lunch with a couple of glasses of excellent tempranillo and only one of the dishes was a bit duff. It’s very similar to what you’d get in a very good tapas bar in Barcelona. The service was brisk but friendly and effective, and the tiny room has a good neighbourhood-type buzz. Plus you get to laugh at pugs wearing top hats cantering past outside. Bonus. Excitingly, José Pizarro is opening up a proper sit-down restaurant just down the road very soon so if you wait 6 months after all the hype has died down I might just get round to reviewing that, too.
8/10
José
104 Bermondsey St
London
SE 3UB
