Review: Eddie '˜tapas' into Spanish food heritage

Eddie now runs cafe and tapas bar El Toro in Broomhill. He went from being a student dishwasher to commis chef, then head chef and finally bought the business three years ago.

He said: “I was involved in restaurants before from my mother, who was a chef, so I have this influence and always enjoyed cooking.”

That influence is very strong in the Morales family, as Eddie works as head chef alongside his brother Diego, an international chef who has a knowledge of Columbian and Spanish food.

The only thing that changed when Eddie took over was the addition of a table in a former bar area.

El Toro opens at 9am for breakfast, continues as a cafe during the day and serves tapas from teatime onwards.

He’s happy to stick with that formula for now but will move with the times when necessary.

Eddie said: “I’m here almost all the time. To be honest, I don’t have almost a life! It’s not a complaint, we have creative, good, interesting times.”

Eddie’s partner Maria Fernandez also works with him and he loves the idea of a family-run business.

“The first thing I learned about Spanish food was when you cook for family, you put all of your love into that. In a restaurant, it’s just thinking your family’s a little bit bigger, like cooking for parents, family and friends.

“I put all my effort in everything I do. I cook everything from scratch and I don’t buy anything in.”

We joined Eddie’s family on Friday night to try out the tapas menu. The restaurant looks like a cafe from the outside but inside the atmosphere feels Spanish immediately.

Paella pans, cooking paraphernalia and dried vegetables hang from a pole in the window and a huge Serrano ham sits on the bar, ready to have slices carved from it.

Spanish music plays in the background and Spanish voices can be heard at the bar.

Staff were friendly and attentive and our waitress checked if we had been before, then explained that the tapas menu is chalked up on a board that runs along one wall.

We decided to help our deliberations along with nibbles of a basket of lovely fresh bread with a bowl of olive oil and balsamic vinegar to dip it in, plus another little terracotta bowl of mixed olives, cornichons and silverskin pickled onions.

We went for a bottle of the house red, a pleasant Tempranillo, and a bottle of tap water also arrived.

The menu is divided into vegetarian, meat and fish and seafood sections with several choices in each. Prices range from £4 to £8 and we were advised to order two to three dishes each.

I really wanted to try that ham but opted instead for dishes to test out the restaurant’s cooking skills.

Top of the list was a Valencian paella ( there were also seafood and vegetarian versions), then we ordered crispy pork belly with honey from the meat section, plus an intriguing-sounding dish of sea bass with a raspberry dressing.

We couldn’t resist the classic patatas bravas and then there was the novelty of courgette from the vegetarian section.

Actually, it really was a novelty as I don’t think we ordered it but had gone for cod croquettes with aioli.

They never arrived and weren’t missed but the crispy-coated courgettes were a delight, accompanied by a very good guacamole.

The paella was the undoubted star of the show, though, and we chased around the bowl for the last tasty morsels. The classic saffron-coloured rice dish included a mixture of meat, mussels in the shell and one shell-on prawn.

The pork was cooked on the bone and chopped into finger-sized pieces. It was also very good, the honey-tinged meat being moist on the inside and crispy on the outside.

The sea bass was interesting, with delicate fillets of beautifully pan fried fish topped with a tangy, slightly sticky sauce that was coulis-like in texture but not taste.

The only letdown were the patatas bravas. The spicy tomatoey sauce was fine but the diced sauteed potatoes were a little pale and could have done with a little longer in the pan to crisp them up.

After a short break, we tried the great-looking desserts. They offer either the traditional cream catalan or a mix and match of cakes, meringues and toppings.

I had my eye on a lovely-looking almond cake and it didn’t disappoint, wonderfully moist with a dense, large-crumbed texture. I had it with a jug of lovely thick yoghurt and the plate was dressed with a caramel sauce.

Matthew went for a buttery waffle topped with ice cream and dessicated coconut with a toffee sauce and was well satisfied.

The bill, with good coffees, came to £65.85. It’s cash only, by the way.

Embarrassingly, I found I had lost my purse but the staff couldn’t have been nicer and were happy to trust me to pay them back the next day.

Their kindness took the edge off having to cancel all my cards when I got home.